Five Friends - A Marauder Story - Year Two
by Emilily2
Summary: *FINISHED 14/3*All back for the second year, featuring Lily, James, Sirius, Remus, Peter, dodgy dress robes, teddy bears and revenge. not really sure if this should be PG-13 or an R, so you have been warned. Please r/r, thank you!
1. Happy Holidays

Chapter 1: Happy Summers

Authors note: this, as you probably guessed, is the next part of the Five Friends Series, which, yes, will be a series. All feedback is always welcome. 

Disclaimer: I own none of the characters that you might recognise. I do own the plots and some of the professors, all the Marauders families, (bar Petty), and most of their school friends. Thank you for reading this far. 

Dedication: I want to offer my deepest sympathy for all those affected by last Tuesday's terrible events in America, and say that everybody in Britain feels the same.

Chapter 1: Happy Summers

James was annoyed. Come to think of it, he had been annoyed for the entire summer. He had only been at home and hour when he had been told that the entire family wee jetting off to Poland for the whole summer. POLAND! He thought angrily, why not somewhere warm? Or at least a popular tourist destination where there might be some other kids to play with. Poland was just cold and wet, there wasn't even any snow, and it seemed to be empty of people under thirty. Consequently he had been forced to spend the entire summer with David and Luke, and the three of them had been at each other's throats constantly from the very start. The only person who had shown the ability (or the will, for that matter) to separate them was his grandmother, and she hardly spent a lot of time with them. And what was this all for? James thought bitterly. For his father to improve wizarding ties between Poland and England, and his mother to see about the possibility of opening a shop there. All his parents fault, his parents who had seen each other twice since they arrived. So much for his plans of having Lily and Sirius to stay for the summer. 

An owl flew through his window. It was chancery, Lily's owl. He smiled; his friend's letters were the only things that had brought him joy that holiday. But wait, what was the owl carrying? It looked like a cat basket. 

Chancery dropped his load on James' bed. James looked into the basket, then grinned. It was Remus' cat, Toots, and around her neck was a note saying "I knew you were miserable, so I came to cheer you up!"James laughed out loud for the first time since Luke had pushed David into a dustbin on the very first day of the holidays. He reached for the letter tied to Chancery's leg and settled down for a good long read. 

****************************

Back in England, Remus wasn't having a very good time either. With James away he had to spend his time with Peter, who was very boring to be around. Peter didn't exactly jump with exciting ideas, and he couldn't invite Lily and Sirius to stay, because his mother had said it wasn't fair on poor James, isolated in Poland. Bah! Remus had thought angrily. What about poor isolated Remus? But then, his mother always sis have a soft spot for James, she (quite rightfully) felt sorry for him.

****************************

In the middle of Muggle London, Sirius felt just as bad as his friends. He was being dragged around clothes shops by Esmerelda, who was supposed to be babysitting him. His baby brother was with his parents in Ireland and his older brother was staying with friends, so at least twice a week for the entire holidays he got dragged into what seemed like every clothes shop in London. Ever since Esme had dumped David Potter just after school had broken up, she had been desperate to attract the attention of a new boyfriend. So far they had been to Regents St., Oxford St., Sutton, Kensington High St, Putney and many more. 

"Esme, are you ever going to stop shopping?" Sirius whined. Esme ignored him, so he tried again. When she didn't respond, he pushed her over.

"Sirius!" she shrieked. "Stop it or I'll tell Mum and Dad!" Enforced companionship had worsened their already bad relationship to revulsion. Sirius was convinced he was having the worst summer possible. 

****************************


	2. Diagon Alley

Chapter 2: Diagon Alley

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the recognisable characters here, they belong to the wonderful JK Rowling, and I don't intend to make any money from borrowing them like this. 

Chapter 2: Diagon Alley

It was the day before school began again, and Remus, James and Peter were about to leave for Diagon Alley. Remus' mother was taking them, and they stood impatiently in the kitchen, waiting for Mrs Lupin to stop remembering she had forgotten things. Not only were they excited because James had only returned from exile in Poland the day before, but just that morning they had had news that Sirius would meet them in the Leaky Cauldron. There was no news about Lily; they hadn't heard from her in a week. 

"Hurry up, boys, we haven't got all day, you know," Angela Lupin scolded, bustling into the room. She was about 35 years old, slightly too thin, and her hair had gone prematurely grey. But her attitude belied the outward signs of age. The boys glared at her, before realising she was joking. They all liked Remus' mother, because she was great fun to be around. 

They each took some Floo powder and disappeared one by one, until they were all standing in the Leaky Cauldron, the wizard's pub and hotel that was the entrance to Diagon Alley. "Now all we have to do is wait for the Blacks to arrive," Angela said, ordering them a butterbeer each. It was the first time they had had one, and they were hooked immediately. It was so warm and creamy, so…well, just right. They each thought it was the nicest thing they had ever tasted. 

It was fifteen minutes later, twenty minutes after they were supposed to have arrived, when suddenly Esmerelda appeared in the fireplace, followed so quickly by Orion and then Sirius that all three landed in a pile. Sirius laughed so much that he had to sit down again as soon as he stood up. There was a lengthy gap after that, before the youngest, Steve, came through. Steve was an exact copy of Sirius and Orion, except for his eyes, which were hazel. 

There was another gap then, before first Mr Black, then his wife came through. Remus suspected that there should have been more of a gap between the first three, but that Orion and Sirius had both jumped through before they could be stopped. 

Arcturus Black looked exactly like his sons, dark eyed and dark haired, but he walked with a limp from where he had been hit with a botched Avada Kedavra from one of the imitation Dark Lords that popped up every few years. Cerys Black had red hair, a remnant of her very distant Weasley ancestry, and she looked nothing like any of her children, but she had passed on to every single one of them her famous red-headed temper, and arguments in the Black household were very fierce. 

Right now though, the majority of the Blacks were laughing at their tormented sister, and Cerys was looking delighted to meet Sirius' friends, who she had heard so much about. "You four meet us back here at one so we can have lunch and then get your school books." Angela Lupin was telling Remus, who nodded, grabbed Sirius and Peter and made for the door before his mother could change her mind. "James!" he yelled, and James hurried after. 

Just as they reached the door they heard a loud shriek. "Sirius! James!" They looked around and saw, to their delight, Lily, who seemed to be pleading with her parents. Having apparently lost the argument, she turned away sullenly. As soon as her parent's backs were turned, she shot across the room, yelling, "Run! Run!" all five careered into the back yard and Sirius tapped the brick. Before their parents had reached the door, they had disappeared into the crowds of Diagon Alley. 

************************

When they had stopped running, the boys turned to Lily. All five were out of breath, as pushing their way through back-to-school crowds was much harder than it looked. "What was that about?" James panted.

"Petunia." Lily spat. "She managed to convince my parents that I'd tried to turn her into a frog, so they said I was grounded.She was bawling her eyes out, but it was her fault, the whole bloody thing. She started the argument, she kept following me when I tried to walk away, and then she fabricated the whole ridiculous tale." Lily paused, the said with relish, "that was the point when I told her I thought she'd look better as a horse and as soon as I knew how I was gonna try turn her into one." Her friends exploded with laughter. 

"What did your parents say?" Remus asked, between gasps of laughter. 

"Well…that was the point where they took away Chancery, started intercepting your letters, which is why you haven't heard from me, and banned me from TV. Consequently I now know every spell in the spell books."

Again the boys laughed, and Lily was a bit miffed. "I've had a terrible summer, you know, and this just caps it off," she snapped. "You're supposed to be sympathetic." They laughed even more.

"Come on, Lil. See the funny side," Sirius said. 

"Yeah, perennial good girl Lily Evans gets a taste of her own medicine," laughed James. Lily kicked him in the shin.

"OW!" James complained. "What was that for?"

"You were being a bastard," Lily said.

"How was –"

"Anyone for ice cream?" Remus, the peacemaker interrupted brightly. 

"Yes!" they all said at once, completely distracted. 

"Come on then, " he said, marvelling inwardly at how easy they were to distract. They all, Sirius included, had the attention span of a three year old, except when they got stuck on something. When that happened, whatever it was got done, even if they had to pick through fifty-foot thick stainless steel walls with toothpicks. They were that stubborn. 

Within minutes they had reached Marvellous Mark's Transcendent Ice Cream Parlour. As it was a rather cold morning, it was empty, and they went up to order straight away. 

"Three scoops please, vanilla, chocolate and jam, please," Remus said. 

"Coming right up," Marvellous Mark, who looked more washed-out than marvellous, said. 

"Three scoops, coffee, milk and tea, with little flashy chocolate bits on top," ordered conservative Peter. 

"Any second now," said a happy looking Marvellous Mark. 

"Four scoops, lemon, banana, mead and chocolate, with chocolate bits, wafers, sprinkles, and jam on the top," requested James. 

"Oh, just one minute, sir," a beaming Marvellous Mark replied. 

"Five scoops, egg, sausage, tomato, mushroom, and toast, with butter and marmite on the just the toast, brown sauce on just the sausage and salt on the others," a happy looking Sirius ordered. 

"Whatever you want, young sir," said a now bemused looking Marvellous Mark, "And for the young lady?"

"Six scoops, jam, honey, orange juice, mead, Flower Power and Bertie Botts," Lily said complacently. They all, Marvellous Mark included, gasped. "Are – are you sure?" Marvellous Mark stammered. 

"Of course."

Marvellous Mark, who prided himself on his memory and his unshockability, now looked both shocked and baffled. "Take a seat," he told them vaguely. They sat down. 

"Lily, you're not seriously going to have that, are you?" Remus asked. 

"Yes, I am," she said, rather annoyed, having no idea what they were talking about. 

"Lil' Lily's going to fly higher than a bird," James crowed. 

"It's not funny, James," Remus snapped.

"What?" asked Lily, now thoroughly confused. 

"Bertie Bott's ice cream gives you a knew flavour with every mouthful," James explained, "but you don't know what you're getting as it stays the same colour. Even Siri wasn't brave enough to try that." Sirius nodded vehemently. 

"Too many bad experiences when I was a child…"

"And the Flower Power one, well…" Remus continued, "That's left over from the '60's. Immensely popular, it was. And highly illegal." 

Lily giggled. "Really? Well that just makes me wanna try it even more. In fact, I think we should all have some!" 

They all immediately looked away. "Er…"

"Maybe another day,"

"I don't know…"

"Are you all scared?" Lily scoffed. "James Potter, are you a coward?"

James flushed. "No I'm not! I'm in!"

After that, it took Sirius less than two seconds to make up his mind. "Me too!" he exclaimed joyously.

Despite his misgivings, Remus was not going to be left out. "And me!"

They al turned to look at Peter. "Umm…" he was saved from having to answer by the arrival of their ice creams. Marvellous Mark had got the order exactly right. They paid him, then gobbled down their ice creams. As her Bertie Bott's flavours, Lily got grass, tea, mustard, ("YUCK!") sugar, paracetamol and many others. When they had finished everything except the bright pink flower power ice cream, Lily began dividing it up. "Are you in, Peter?"

"I'll just watch," he said nervously. 

Lily gave the others a bit of the ice cream, and they lifted their spoons. From behind the counter, Marvellous Mark watched with interest. It had been many years since he had had a new Flower Power customer. "Here's to a good trip!" Sirius said, as they picked up a bit of ice cream. Then, with the aplomb of three born dram queens and one who was learning rapidly off the best, they put the spoons into their mouths. 


	3. The Day of the Pretty Colours

Disclaimer: I own none of the recognizable characters in this story, but I own everyone else, and I own the plots. 

Chapter 3: The Day of the Pretty Colours 

The ice cream contained little bits of everything, and had a rather odd taste. This was the first thing their super-nervous nerves picked up. And it was the only thing they picked up for about five minutes. Not surprisingly, Sirius got bored. "Nothing's happening!" he complained. "Lets go!" shooting crestfallen Marvellous Mark annoyed glares, they left his transcendent ice cream parlour. 

Maybe it was the movement, or maybe the magically enhanced drugs just needed that amount of time to work, but as soon as the four stepped into Diagon Alley, their senses were assaulted by a riot of unusual colours. The cloaks of stuffy-looking wizards suddenly blazed bright green, shop signs flashed merrily, and everyone seemed to be happy. Or maybe it was just them: they all knew that everything had never seemed so simple; it had never been so easy to be happy. 

At first, Peter didn't notice the change in his friends. "Come on you guys, let's go to the trick shop," he said. As soon as he finished speaking, his friends started to giggle. Actually giggle. He looked quickly at them, alarmed. Their eyes seemed, to his frightened imagination, to be slightly wider, but apart from that they seemed normal. "What the…" he said.

"Oh, leave it, Pete," Lily said slowly. 

"Ish not worth it," Sirius said. 

"Why is that elephant yellow?" James asked. Peter hurriedly looked around for any sign of elephants. 

"What elephant, Jamsie?" Remus asked slowly, "All I can see are pink lions." At this Peter visibly jumped. 

"Over there, Reem, but look, its not just yellow, it's flashin'," said Lily. 

"I want to sit down," said Sirius, and he did, right in the middle of Diagon Alley. James giggled at him. "It's funny, isn't it?" Sirius asked. James sat down too. 

"Yes!" he said. The two boys started laughing. #Remus and Lily sat down next to them and started to laugh too. Pretty soon, all four were hysterical. 

Peter was at his wit's end. His friends were sitting in the middle of the street, oblivious to anything he said, and were starting to get some very weird looks. Even wizards find some things just too weird. If only he could just get them inside…

"Come on, up you get!" Peter said brightly, trying to lift Remus to his feet. "No, no, nice lion, I want to stay here. Leave me be." Completely baffled by this, Peter moved on to Lily. 

"You know I love you guys," Lily was saying, "I love you lots and lots and lots and – no! Leave me alone!" Peter had tried to pull her up. 

The other two boys remained ignorant of this. "We love you too, Sinead!" they chorused. Sinead? Sinead? Who the hell was Sinead? Peter thought. In that very moment, he gave up, and sank to the ground beside them. 

******************************

That was how Orion Black found them two hours later.He nearly walked straight into Remus, then noticed that the five of them were actually sitting on the ground. Sirius and Lily had fallen asleep on each other's shoulders, James and Remus were still giggling, and Peter looked exhausted. 

"James," Orion said loudly. 

James looked up vaguely. "Oh hello, 'Rion," he said, then went back to giggling. 

"They had that Flower Power ice cream," Peter said resignedly, from somewhere near Orion's feet. Orion looked shocked and worried. "Oh God," he said, "We cant let the parents find them like this." Peter just threw his hands up in the air and walked off. He had had enough. 

"You owe me for this, little bro'," Orion muttered, as he walked towards Marvellous Mark's. Minutes later, he came back out, holding two large jugs of water. Without pausing, he poured the cold water over the very slightly high teenagers. 

Sirius and Lily spluttered awake. Remus and James just spluttered. "Orion!" Sirius yelled. Orion was pleased to note that they were as back to normal as they ever were. Thank God for magical drugs, no bad after effects, he thought. 

"Don't look at me like that, Sirius," he said coldly. "I just saved your life. Imagine if mum had found you like that."

Sirius paled.

"But all the pretty colours…" Lily said wistfully.

**************************

However much Orion had saved them all from _that_ particular argument, Lily still had a rather large one to face when she got back. They all trekked into the Leaky Cauldron at ten past one, having been given no choice by their hungry stomachs not to come back. 

"Lily Madeleine Evans!" Lily's mother shrieked as she came through the door. Her friends winced. "What do you think you were playing at, running off like that?"

"Well it's not fair!" Lily burst out. "I didn't say that to 'Nia, she made it all up!"

"I'll have no more of these cock and bull tales, Lily. I'm sick of it. But you'll get your punishment after lunch." Despite her best attempt to look threatening, Violet Evans didn't seem to have much of an effect on Lily.

The Lupins, Blacks and Evans, plus James and Peter, had lunch together. It started off by being rather strained, but no one could keep James and Sirius quiet for long, especially when they hadn't seen each other for two months, and soon everyone was laughing. This didn't distract Lily's mother though; as soon as the meal was over, she grabbed Lily and marched her outside and then all the way down Diagon Alley. The boys, who were curious, followed, and their parents tagged along to give Mrs Evans moral support. 

To the surprise of the children, Mrs Evans marched Lily straight into Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions. Madam Malkin came out to meet them. "Her dress robes," Violet Evans said roughly, pushing Lily forward. "Pink please."

Madam Malkin took one look at Lily's flaming red hair and began to protest. "But her hair –" 

"I don't care. This is her punishment. And I want them to be charmed so the colour is not changeable."

"Very well," Madam Malkin sighed, beginning to measure Lily and Sirius, whose mother had decided to take advantage of the situation. Lily spent the entire time glaring at her mother, because this really wasn't fair. The one piece of advice unselfconscious Mrs Evans had ever given her daughter was never, ever to wear pink, because it would clash terribly. It was a horrible punishment. 

After Lily and Sirius had been measured, it was the turn of James and Peter, then Remus, before Madam Malkin magically made their robes. James and Sirius had to have new school robes as well, because they had grown so much. When she had finished, they all had to try on their new robes. 

Lily's face burned with embarrassment and anger as she put the robes on. It was a shame: they were beautifully cut and well made. But when she showed everyone, even the boys (including Orion and Steve) knew there was something wrong, and they nearly collapsed trying to stifle their laughter. She clashed all the way down, and her blush didn't help anything. 

"Enfixio," Madam Malkin said, tapping Lily's robes with her wand. "They're completely colour fast."

"Thank you," all the mothers said, and paid up before leaving. The rest of the day was spent in stony silence on Lily's part, as they visited the bookshop and potions shop, and nothing her friends could do could snap her out of it. She maintained her silence all the way back to her house, before yelling "I HATE YOU!" at her mother, and locking herself into her room.


	4. New Aquaintances

Chapter 4: New Acquaintances

Chapter 4: New Acquaintances

Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plots, and intend to make no money from this story.

Authors Note: I know the last chapter was kind of weird (kind of? The voices in my head say) and I apologise. This story will be getting back to as near as it ever is to normal now. Thanks for persevering if you've got this far. Oh yeah, and I know my timeline is different from the normal one, but this is how my story fits, so just ignore it. 

September the First 1975

That was the first thought on five minds as woke up on that particular morning. Each, in their own way, celebrated the day, Lily by jumping out of the bed; Remus by allowing himself to relax under the covers a few minutes longer than normal; James by making an extra special effort to pull himself out of his safe warm bed before the housekeeper came to shout at him; Peter by steeling himself not to check for the monster under the bed before he put his feet down, and Sirius by discarding the semi-transparent t-shirt with nine holes and a large rip in the back where he would normally have put on the first thing to hand. 

Nobody made it through the morning without disaster, and this included a typical Lily- Petunia argument, James cursing David and Peter dropping his trunk down the stairs. But eventually, everything in the different houses was ready and people bundled into cars or fireplaces.

The atmosphere in the Evans' car was spectacularly bad. Lily sat in a stony silence while her dad tried to make conversation. 

"You're friends seemed nice, Lily."

Even Petunia's "You have friends?" didn't elicit a response. Her dad tried again. "What do you think you'll be learning this year?" the silence after his question stretched on, and he gave up.

When they got to the station, Lily stalked off, and it was only due to Cerys Black, who had become great friends with Lily's mother, that the Evans' managed to get through the barrier. As it was, Petunia was shaking with fear from actually being around real witches and wizards. When they got through, Lily was right by the barrier, Lily was right there, laughing with her friends as they waited for Sirius' family. Seeing the look on her sister's face, Lily smiled maliciously. "'Nia, you haven't met my friends yet, have you?" Petunia seemed to be unable to do anything more than shake her head.

"This is Remus, Sirius and James. And Peter." The boys turned around to face Petunia, and the dumbstruck expression on her face got even worse. Petunia's jaw dropped, and for the first time in her life seemed to be unable to think of anything to say. 

"Hi," said Sirius warily. This was the sister who made Lily so upset, and he didn't quite know how to treat her.

It wasn't just that, however. None of them had noticed, in the previous year, the kind of looks that James, Remus and Sirius got from girls. All three were showing early signs of turning out to have heartbreaker looks; Sirius with his smile, James with his eyes, and Remus with his fair colouring and kind demeanour that made him stand apart from the other two. But they had failed to notice this, just as they had failed to notice the looks being thrown Lily's way, even by much older students like Luke Potter.

Now, faced with such obvious evidence, they couldn't help but notice, and a little piece of their childhood innocence was shattered. They would all, Lily included, be looking for similar reactions from other girls.

James grinned at Petunia. "Nice to meet you," he said, breaking several minutes of uncomfortable silence. He held out his hand, and Lily felt herself wondering if he would kiss Petunia's hand as he had kissed hers a year earlier. But James just shook the flustered Petunia's hand, and in some secret place Lily breathed a sigh of relief. 

"What was it Lily said your name was? Petty?" Sirius asked mock-seriously. Petunia glared at Lily for the use of the hated nickname, while the other three boys hid snickers with their hands. "That's right, Siri," Lily smiled sweetly. 

Fortunately, confrontation was avoided by Luke Potter's bellow that carried across the platform. "James, you idiot, what do you think you're doing! The train's leaving!"

And so it was. The driver was climbing into his car, the guard was blowing his whistle and they were the only students still left on the platform. With a collective yell, they grabbed up Lily and Sirius' trunks, Peter snatched the cages of the two owls, and they ran towards Luke, who flung the carriage door open. He pulled the trunks on, pulled four of the five friends on, and with a combined effort, they got Sirius onto the train just before the platform disappeared. 

When they were all safely inside the carriage, the five began to laugh hysterically. Luke glared at them. "What do you think you were doing?" he raged. "You could have been-"

"You sound like David," Remus interrupted, and Luke visibly stopped himself from retaliating. He didn't want to end up like his elder brother, unable to have any fun. With a final glare at them, he stomped out of the carriage, in the direction of the prefect's car, leaving them alone. 

The journey passed quickly enough, with games of Exploding Snap, eating, catching up from the holidays and planning revenge on the Slytherin's. the only eventful happening came after about three hours, courtesy of the Slytherin's themselves.

The door of the compartment crashed open, revealing Snape and Malfoy. Their 'goons' as James called them, followed them in. 

"Hello," said Malfoy courteously. 

"Goodbye," smiled James. Malfoy's face twitched. 

"Don't be rude to me, Potter," he threatened softly. 

"Why not? In case you gang up on me and beat me up?" James demanded angrily. 

"Exactly," said Snape. 

"Afraid to face us on equal terms, Sevvy?" Lily asked, knowing he hated the nickname. Two red spots appeared on Malfoy's pale cheeks. 

"Why should I be scared of a Mudblood like you, Evans?"

"Because you know I'd kick the shit out of you," Lily replied smugly. Remus groaned inwardly.

"Hardly, little girl."

"Why do you pick on second years, anyway, Malfoy? Is it 'cos you're afraid to fight anyone your own size?"

Malfoy appeared to have lost his temper. "That's it, Evans. You wont know when or how it'll come, but I promise you I'll use every curse I know to get you for that."

"Why's that? Too scared to pick on big, strong Sirius, or Remus or James, or even Peter, are you?" Lily sneered. 

"Maybe ill get them too. Or maybe I'll just choose one of them. Pettigrew, I think. He'll pay, too."

Too late, Lily realised what she had done, and blanched. Peter was most definitely the weak spot in their armour. 

James stepped forward to take charge of the situation, as Sirius was locked in a staring contest with Snape. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave now," James said, waving his wand. The appearance of wands in Remus, Sirius and Lily's hands seemed to convince Malfoy, who didn't have his out. He and Snape turned to leave, and got stuck in the doorway with the other Slytherin's. It was such a comic situation that the Gryffindors had to laugh, and Snape banged the door so hard behind him when he finally got out that all the glass shattered. 

************************

Lily walked into her dormitory that night, exhausted, and frowned as she saw the other fur girls. She had completely forgotten they existed during the long summer holidays and couldn't even remember their names. She walked over to her trunk. While she was searching for her pyjamas, she came across the pink dress robes and held them up. 

"They're pretty," one of the girls behind her said. Lily whipped around, and saw it was the loudest of the girls, a cheerful blonde. 

"Thanks…" for her life, Lily couldn't remember the girl's name. 

"Vicky," the girl smiled.

"Vicky, then. But they're horrible on me, they clash, you see."

"Oh, I'm sorry. But how come you're talking to me now?" 

"I don't know," Lily mused. "I'm sorry about last year, I guess I never thought we could be friends. I have the others."

"I see," Vicky said slowly. 

"That doesn't mean we cant be friends, though," Lily said quickly. "But I don't know their names either." She indicated the other three girls.

"That's Tabitha," Vicky indicted a mousy looking girl, "that's Andrea," a tall, brown haired girl stared at Lily in a way that was far from friendly, "and that's Zoe." The fourth student, a slender girl with hair almost as black as James and Sirius', didn't even look up. Strangely, this was who Lily felt would be the most interesting.

"I'm sorry," Lily apologised to Vicky, this should have happened last year."

"That's ok," Vicky answered. "Good night." She crawled into her bed, soon followed by all the others.


	5. Hagrid

Disclaimer: all that is recognisable in this story belongs as intellectual property to JK Rowling, and as copyright to Warner 

Disclaimer: all that is recognisable in this story belongs as intellectual property to JK Rowling, and as copyright to Warner Bros. I really do not intend to make any money out of it, I promise! 

Chapter 5: Hagrid

The next morning did not dawn brightly. Storm clouds rolled overhead, constantly threatening thunder that never came. Their first two lessons were like that: Professors Headley and Malfoy quested endlessly to find a reason to penalise the five, who were on best behaviour. They discovered that, once in a _very_ long while, it was fun to annoy these two particular teachers by being perfect. Consequently, none of them even sneezed. However, Headley's next class, of Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw third years, lost several hundred points off her between them. 

To everyone's delight, September the first had been a Thursday, meaning that they had only one full day of lessons before the weekend. Their last class of the afternoon was Transfiguration, and by then the desire to be perfect had worn off the five friends. Remus had tried to convince the others that Sirius should not be allowed to drink coffee at lunch, but no, they hadn't listened. Now Sirius was bouncing along the corridor, zigzagging from side to side like a mental bunny on a jinxed broomstick. Remus could feel himself being infected by his friend's hyperness:that was probably why he had agreed to give James and Lily a bunny-hopping race to the classroom.

"3- 2 – 1- GO!" yelled Peter. The three of them bunny-hopped off, Lily already in the lead. She reached the classroom first and turned to face the boys. "Petrificus Jambicus!" she yelled, pointing her wand at James.His legs snapped together and he fell over. "That'll encourage you not to cheat!" 

"I NEVER cheat!" James shouted from the floor, completely incensed, just as Remus reached Lily. James fumbled for his wand, eventually finding it in his sock. 

"Rictumsempra!" He cursed Lily with the laughing curse and she immediately doubled over, laughing angrily. 

To his horror, Remus suddenly heard the tap-tapping of McGonagall's boots. "Oh shit!" he said. "Finite Incantem!" 

Nothing happened. 

"Finite Incantem!" he yelled, desperate now.

Again nothing happened.

"Oh SHIT!"

"Mr Lupin!" McGonagall said, suddenly appearing around the corner. "Mind your – WHAT?" she had, of course, spotted Lily and James.

"Finite Incantem," she said, more calmly. James' legs came unstuck and Lily stopped laughing. The three students looked at her apprehensively. 

"I don't even want to know," McGonagall said, shaking her head. "I don't want to give you detention on your first day." With that, she swept past them into the classroom, and they followed, dazed.

James and Lily sat down on either side of Sirius, and Remus took his place in front of them. Professor McGonagall started on her start of second year lecture, but all most of the class could hear were Sirius, James and Lily. 

"It was _not_ my fault!" Lily hissed.

"It was too! Imagine if Headley had come along!"

Squeak, squeak, went Sirius' chair as he walked back and forth. 

"It was your idea to have that stupid race, you stupid oaf!"

"You didn't have to curse me!" James almost shrieked.

Squeak, squeak.

"I was getting you back for all the things you did to me last year."

"All the things I did to you? Lily, you dyed my hair pink for three days, for cryin' out loud!"

"You turned me into a tortoise."

"You told the entire tower I was gay!"

Squeak, squeak.

"Well you are. I've seen the way you look at Sirius." By now the entire class was riveted. 

"Better than the way you look at Snape."

There was a shocked silence, broken only by Sirius' 'squeak, squeak'.

Then everything happened at once.

"Professor, can't we do something interesting?" Sirius whined. McGonagall turned around just in time to see Remus turn to Lily and James.

"Can't you two lovebirds shut up?" he hissed angrily, which was a big mistake. Lily and James both pointed their wands at him, saying:

"Furnunculus!"

"Petrificus Totalus!"

However, Remus was too used to them, and he ducked, meaning both of the spells hit McGonagall. The result would have been very funny, if they hadn't suddenly become aware of the consequences. Little boils popped up all over McGonagall's face, making her look like a teenager whose chronic acne had turned green, and her whole body snapped together, causing her to fall over completely. 

The class watched in shock. Luckily, James kept his head in a crisis. "Finite Incantem," he said clearly, and then winced as the teacher stood up. The boils on her face didn't conceal her look of fury.

"Potter, Evans, Lupin – where is Black?" 

Everyone looked around. Due most probably to his unfortunate hyperactivity, Sirius had made a run for it. 

"Class dismissed," McGonagall said stiffly, only just managing to control her voice. "You three, stay behind. Just GO, Pettigrew!" Peter slunk out of the door after the rest of the shell-shocked class. 

"What did you think you were doing?" McGonagall demanded loudly. "First I find you messing about before the lesson, then you _dare_ to fight in _my _class. WHY?"

None of the three answered. They were giggling too much; the situation was ludicrous. McGonagall gave up. "You will serve detention tonight, at the gamekeepers hut. Make sure you tell Black. Why he thought running away would help…" She walked off, muttering. The three looked at each other in joy. First detention of the year, cursing McGonagall, and they still had forty-five minutes of the lesson left!

****************************

At eight o'clock that night, Remus, Lily, James and Sirius set off out of the tower, leaving Peter to play chess with Frank Longbottom. Frank was almost as bad as Peter was, and Peter was almost as bad as Lily. Due to the fact that they had arrived at school late in their first year, the four had never met Hagrid, but they had seen him from a distance, and he looked tall enough to terrify even them. Therefore they were slightly nervous when they reached the hut. 

"Knock, then," Lily said snippily.

"Why don't you?" James asked.

"Because your great hefty head is in front of me.

"Move then, lazy."

"Is that the best you can come up with?"

"No, little Snape-lover."

"Were you upset that you hurt your darling Professor today, Jamsie?"

"Shut up, Lily," James muttered, and knocked on the door.

"Did he just blush?" Sirius asked Remus delightedly. 

"I think so," Remus agreed solemnly.

"Awwwwww," they both cooed in unison, "Lil' Jamsie's in love!" 

"Wi' who?" asked a gruff voice, miles above their heads.

They all looked up, startled. Hagrid, the gamekeeper, towered above them, his long, wild beard and hair making him rather scary looking. "I've heard about you four," he continued, "the tricks yeh play an' all. Which of yeh is which?"

None of them lacked courage. "I'm Sirius."

"I'm James."

"Remus."

"Lily."

"Well, ah knew that," Hagrid grinned. "Seein' as yer the on'y girl."

"What do we have to do?" asked James.

"Yeh've to go into the forest-"

"Really?" Sirius asked, his eyes shining.

"Yeah. An' find me at least eight Jarveys. Professor Kettleburn needs fer'is class tomorra."

"Alone?" James asked, his voice wobbling just a little bit.

"Yeh can take Fang. Ain't nothin' in the Forest what'll hurt yeh anyway," Hagrid said reassuringly. "An' I'll make yeh a nice cuppa fer when yeh get back."

There was nothing to do but nod.

It was amazing that they had never been in the forest before. They had had nearly a hundred detentions each in their first year, and never once had anyone suggested sending them into the Forbidden Forest. As well as that, they were usually attracted to anything they couldn't have, and 'Forbidden' was definitely off-limits. It was probably worry for Peter that had kept them out; not one of them doubted he would scream when he heard about this. But they had no choice, and they'd die before showing they were scared.

Hagrid opened the door fully, and out came a barking, crazy ball of fur, that turned out to be Hagrid's boarhound Fang. Fang was barley more that a puppy, and he bounced straight up to Sirius, knocking him over. Sirius laughed delightedly, and began to frolic with the dog. 

"Yeh know what Jarveys are, don' yeh?" Hagrid asked the others, who nodded. "I need at least eight, but if it getster midnight, give it up an' come back 'ere. Oh yeh, an' try an' stay on the paths. Good luck."

Lily, James and Remus began to walk. "Come on, bitch," James called back to Sirius, who pushed Fang off and stood up. "Oi! How am I a bitch?" he demanded.

"Well if Fang's the boy doggie, you must be the bitch," James explained with perfect logic. Lily and Remus laughed. 

"Shut up Jamsie-poo." Sirius ran to catch up with them. "So what do we have to do?" his friends groaned.

"You heard," said Remus. 

"Don't roll your eyes at me, Lily," said Sirius, without even looking at her. 

"Then don't stick your tongue out at me," Lily returned, without a glance his way.

"You did it first."

"I'm not gonna argue like this with you, Siri."

"Oh, not good enough for you, am I?" Sirius said, pretending to be upset. "Not as good as lover-boy Jamsie?"

Remus cut off any response Lily might have made. "Shhhhhhhhh!" he said loudly. "You're gonna scare off any animals before you even get near them! Now light your wands."

"Lumos," three penitent voices muttered.

"Now shush and listen."

They walked along the path silently, walking very close together. Outside the forest it was twilight, but inside, the trees cut off any light and it was hard to see more than a few paces ahead. Remus, the Dark creatures expert, walked in front, and Sirius brought up the rear. 

"Got one!" Sirius shrieked suddenly, startling them. He stunned the unfortunate Jarvey, and Lily held out a bag that Hagrid had given her. She looked sympathetically at the ferret-like creature, but Hagrid had assured them that this wouldn't hurt the Jarveys. 

They walked on for another twenty minutes. "I'm bored," said Sirius.

"What a surprise," muttered James.

"Pardon?" 

"You heard."

"Oh shut up, you're scaring the animals."

"Those two scare the animals anyway, Lily."

"Good point, Re."

"Then how come I'm the only one who's caught one," demanded Sirius.

"Particularly stupid Jarvey."

"You're just jealous, Lil."

"Oh SHUT UP!" Remus shouted. "It's getting really dark and I personally do not want to spend the whole night in here listening to you three bicker."

"Well we don't want to hear you telling us off al night either, but you don't hear us complaining," Sirius said rebelliously, but he shut up after that. They started walking again, and to their relief, they had soon captured three more. 

"What's the time?" Sirius whispered.

"Nearly ten o'clock."

"Bloody hell…"

They had no choice but to keep walking. This was turning out to be one of their least favourite detentions, but they still knew it was nothing to the Slytherin Quidditch detention, and that made them feel a little better. By eleven o'clock they had six Jarveys. "Maybe we should turn back now?" Remus asked.

"Frightened, little Re?" Sirius jeered.

"I'm just thinking it took us nearly three hours to get here." Sirius closed his mouth. The situation was now ludicrously unfunny.

"Maybe we'll catch some more on the way back?" James said hopefully. He absolutely hated to fail at anything he started.

They turned around, and Sirius was now in the lead. The location, the time of night and the thought of failure had done nothing to quell the enthusiasm Sirius had for everything but Slytherins and Brussel sprouts, and he bounded along the path, Fang frolicking beside him. Sirius seemed to have found a great friend in the large dog. 

Suddenly, even through the racket Sirius was making, they heard the unmistakeable chatter of a Jarvey somewhere off to their right. Without thought, Lily plunged into the bushes after it, and her friends followed. The Jarvey seemed to be leading them on, for it stayed ahead of them, dancing just out of reach of their spells, leading them further and further away from the safety of the path.

They came to a clearing, panting from the exertion of running through the dense undergrowth, and the Jarvey stood still in the centre of it, as if this was all it had meant to do. Seeing it, Lily immediately yelled 'Stupefy!" and the Jarvey keeled over. James started forward to pick it up, but he stopped when a melodious but somehow menacing voice rang out from the forest around them. "Who dares to attack innocent creature in this forest?"

James scurried back to his friends, valuing suddenly the safety in numbers, but still looking bravely for the owner of the voice. What happened next nearly frightened them all to death.

A beast, half man, half horse, stepped out from the shadows of the trees. The moon shone down on him, making his skin glisten, and the four looked in awe. A female followed him. They were both bare-chested and Lily had to shove Sirius to stop him staring at the beautiful half-woman.

"What do you in this forest? What right have you to attack this innocent, defenceless animal?" it was the woman who spoke this time, and her voice was compelling, almost forcing you to listen. 

"We – we…" Under the harsh looks of the two centaurs, Sirius' voice petered out. 

"Yes?" the female asked coldly. 

"Hagrid sent us," Lily said firmly. "He promised that it wouldn't hurt them." The male centaur seemed to relax at Hagrid's name, but the woman looked even angrier. 

"That is accept-"

"It is not!" the woman interrupted. "It is true you are James Potter, Lily Evans, Remus Lupin and Sirius Black." It wasn't a question. "Where is the fifth of your number?"

"Peter didn't get detention. But how did you know?" asked Sirius.

"Did you see it in the stars?" Remus asked softly.

The female gave him an appraising look. "Yes. And you are the star gazer." The others looked at him in surprise.

"Will I ever see the star?" Remus asked, even more quietly. 

"It is not yet written," the centaur answered sadly. The male centaur stepped forward and began to speak.

"I can tell you only so much, for it is forbidden to us to meddle in human affairs. I can say only to beware, all of you, of those smaller in soul than yourselves, and that one day, the lion will both save and defeat the snake. Journey home safely." With that last cryptic message the centaurs left, leaving Remus to pick up the Jarvey.

They walked back to Hagrid's hut silently and much more quickly than they had walked out. It was nearly one am when they reached the hut, and they staggered inside, exhausted.

"Did you do it?" Hagrid asked. 

"Seven," James answered. 

"Excelen'!" beamed Hagrid. "I think you deserve this." He handed them each a large piece of chocolate and a cup of tea. As they drank and ate they felt warmth spreading through them.

After some tired goodnights and an invitation from Hagrid to come and visit on Sunday morning, they trudged back up the lawns, through the castle and into Gryffindor Tower, up the stairs and into the boys dormitory. As they were getting ready for bed, Lily turned to James. "Jamie, can I sleep in your bed tonight? 'Cos the girls dorm is so far away." Lily looked about ready to drop, like the others did.

"Sure, Lily." Sirius hid his grin. Hearing the voices, Peter woke up. He stared at Lily and James, the enemies who were being scarily friendly towards each other. He decided to ignore it. "Where have you been all this time?" he asked.

Sirius grinned. "The forest."

"AGGHHH!" Peter yelled. 

Remus didn't laugh. None of them had noticed that Remus hadn't said a word since he had seen the centaurs.


	6. Try-Outs and Thunderstorms

Authors Note: I know that the chapters in my story have been getting longer, and this will be a regular thing from now on, so 

Authors Note: I know that the chapters in my story have been getting longer, and this will be a regular thing from now on, so sorry for all of you who like a nice short story.

Disclaimer: all recognisable characters belong to the wonderful JKR, and I have no hope of ever owning them. I also never intend to make any money off them, because if I did, I wouldn't be posting this story here.

Chapter 6: Try-Outs and Thunderstorms 

Sunday at Hagrid's was intensely enjoyable. The five forgot about any homework they might or might not have been set (they honestly couldn't remember) and ran down to the hut that morning. They spent an enjoyable day there, but it would be the last time they made the mistake of accepting Hagrid's cooking: not even Sirius' strong taste buds could stomach Ferret and Mushroom Pie. They spent the time talking about the kind of animals that lived in the Forbidden Forest and about the Gryffindor Quidditch Team, both subjects that Hagrid was very enthusiastic about.They were all very excited to hear that the Quidditch Trials were next Saturday morning, and that the team needed one Chaser and one Beater. Lily, James, Sirius and Remus all decided to try out. 

Never, they felt, had a week passed so slowly. Every lesson seemed to crawl by, and they were too distracted to play any tricks. Snape kept taunting them, asking if they had all turned into Peter's over the summer, until, that is, James finally snapped and punched him in his over sized nose, earning both of them a nasty trophy-polish and insult-filled detention.

Saturday morning finally arrived, and they rushed downstairs to eat breakfast, only to discover that they couldn't stomach even the thought of eating.Orion Black, who had been the Keeper for the last two years, laughed at them so much that Sirius finally saw red and attacked him. Luckily, Professor Dunworthy just saw it as a family spat and didn't award Sirius a detention for that morning. 

At ten to nine they were on the Quidditch pitch, clutching the crappy school brooms, except for James, who held his now legal Nimbus 1000 protectively. The four established members of the team soon arrived, and they stood with smug grins on their faces in front of the other nervous students.Apart from James, Lily, Remus and Sirius, who had all decided to try out as Chasers, there was an assortment of third, fourth, fifth and sixth year Gryffindors as well.

Finally, the Captain, a striking, brown haired Chaser called Lydia Matthews arrived, and the group of nervous students broke out into nervous whispers. 

"Hello Gryffindors. Thank you for coming to try out for the team." The chatter died down and there was silence as the girl looked at each of the hopeful try-outs. "I'm Lydia, and this, in case you didn't know, is the rest of the team: our fabulous Seeker Lyn, our Keeper Orion," Orion winked at his brother, but Sirius just glared back, "our Chaser Sean and our Beater, Damien." James snickered quietly and Lydia shot him an angry look. "As you know, there are only two positions available at the moment: Chaser and Beater. If you are trying out as a Beater, please line up in front of Sean, and if you want to be a Chaser, Orion." Sirius scowled even more deeply at that, but went obediently to stand behind his friends. 

"Careful, Siri," Orion chuckled, peeing around at him; "With this kind of wind your face'll stay like that!" the rest of the line hid their grins.

It was a horrible day, windy and wild, making for terrible flying conditions. The sky had gone past grey and was now into purple, and it wasn't getting any better. 

"Beaters up first," Lydia called over the wind. Everybody watched in avid interest as each prospective Beater had to aim a Bludger at a ducking and diving Sean, and then attempt to knock it away from a rapidly circling Lyn. Only one person managed both tasks: a springy haired fifth year girl, and when she was awarded the place on the team she yelled loudly and hugged her watching friend.

The Chasers were next, and their task was to score a goal past Orion while Damien attempted to knock the Quaffle out of their hands. The four second years watched in growing hope and despair as person after person failed, leaving them with more hope of winning a place but wondering how the were going to succeed where these older students had failed. Sirius was the first to try. He soared up in the air, grabbed the Quaffle, neatly avoided the Bludger and threw the red ball so hard at Orion that it knocked him off his broom and left him hanging by an arm and a leg. After Lydia had helped Orion back onto his broom, se flew over to where Sirius was grinning happily. "Err…" she said slowly, "I think you'd make a better Beater. Maybe you should try for that next year?" Sirius looked annoyed, if he had chosen to try for that, he might have got the place. Ignoring Orion, who was still swearing at him, e he stalked off to sit with Peter. 

Lily was up next. She caught the Quaffle, avoided the Bludger and shot, but the ball flew just wide. "Shit!" she swore.

"Very good," Lydia said approvingly. "Best so far." It was now Lily's turn to scowl and walk over to Peter. 

Remus stepped up to take his turn. As soon as he got on his broom, the Bludger hit him. It had escaped Damien's grasp. "OW!" he yelled at the Bludger. The Quaffle had gone soaring past him in the strong wind and was headed for the ground. Remus pointed his broom straight downward and shot after it, catching it about ten feet from the ground. Without thinking, he swooped back up again, towards the goal, but he shot hopelessly wide.

Remus flew disconsolately back to the ground, while Lydia and Sean had a conversation in nid air. When she had finished talking, Lydia flew back to Remus. So far, the three second years were getting more personal attention than the rest of the try-outs put together. "That was excellent flying," Lydia said to Remus, "shame about the aiming though." Remus hung his head, annoyed with himself. "Sean reckons, with that dive you just did, that you might make a good Seeker. You don't have to aim for anything with that." Remus looked up at her now, joy in his eyes. "We already have a Seeker," Lydia continued, "But Lyn's in her last year, and we'll need an replacement then. Don't forget to try out." She grinned at him, and called out to James to take his turn. As Remus walked happily towards the others, he was so happy he didn't even notice the dirty looks Sirius had been throwing him since he had started talking to Lydia. The Seeker! That was so amazing!

While Remus had been walking, James had mounted his broomstick. Determination was written all over his face: when James Potter decided he wanted something, he got it. He saw the Bludger coming towards him, ducked, the looped around it; he caught the Quaffle easily, dived with it, then he flew towards the left goal, taking Orion with him, but shot back over to the left goal and scored easily. Lily, Remus, Sirius and Peter were on their feet, cheering. He'd done it, he had done what ten people before had failed to do: he had scored a straight goal against a Keeper who had kept a clean sheet in two out of three games last year.

Lydia was absolutely beaming at him. "Excellent, Potter, brilliant! There's only two people to go, and then…" she trailed off, looking at the two extremely nervous fifth years who were trying not to look too impressed. 

James now faced the most agonizing wait of his young life. He stood next to Sean and Lyn, trying to nonchalant, and failing miserably. His hands twisted around his beloved Nimbus, and when he started fiddling with the twigs in the end, Lyn softly but firmly took it off him and gave him a sympathetic smile. 

Luckily, (for James, that it) neither of the two fifth years came close to matching his flying. When the last one had spectacularly _failed_ to score, Lydia flew over to him. "You're on the team!" she said. James just grinned manically, he was too happy to speak. "Team practices Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, ok?"

Without warning, he was enveloped from behind in a furious bear hug. "Siri, stop," he tried to sat, but Sirius was squeezing him so hard he couldn't even breathe, let alone talk.

"Sirius, let him go, you're suffocating him!" said Remus happily. Sirius allowed himself to be pulled off, and again James was hugged, but this time he could see his attacker, and Remus was a lot gentler. "Ow," James said ruefully, when his friend had let go.

Then it was Lily's turn. "Congrats, Jamie!" she said as she hugged him almost as tightly as Sirius had. Peter was still dancing around them, squeaking "Well Done! Well Done!" Lily broke away from James, and for the first time in five minutes James felt able to breathe properly. He grinned at that thought, and when he saw Orion approaching he grinned even more.

"Congrats, James, your brother'll be very proud of you. That was some amazing flying," Orion concluded sadly."I really pitythe opposing Keepers. Bad luck, lil bro, but did you _have_ to try and kill me?"

"Sorry, bug bro. But you were annoying me. No hard feelings?" 

"Of course not. I only have to think of Esme and I understand."  
Remus smiled at this touching show of brotherly love, while James compared them to his own family. He, Luke and David had never settled things that easily: it usually took hours of inventive swearing and throwing anything breakable his gran hadn't moved before arguments were settled in the Potter household. Momentarily, he felt terribly sad, but then recent events washed over him and he smiled widely. 

He had made the Quidditch team!

*************************

As they were walking back to the castle after James' first ever Quidditch practice, Sirius rounded suddenly on Remus."You were getting very _friendly _with Lydia!" he snarled.

"What?" Remus stared blankly at him. 

"You. And Lydia. I don't believe you sometimes, Remus."

Remus, Lily and Peter continued to stare blankly at this stranger-than-normal Sirius, but daylight suddenly dawned in James' Quidditch-fuddled mind. 

"Oh my god!" he chortled, going into hysterical laughter. 

"What?" the others asked, Sirius with a slightly antagonistic tone. James was definitely not helping. 

But James couldn't, or wouldn't, stop laughing, and Sirius, for the third time that day, lost his temper. He threw himself at James and they crashed to the floor, Sirius flailing out with his fists and James trying to defend himself through laughter. They rolled over and over, and James was just beginning to get angry when a piercing wolf-whistle startled them both so much that they looked up, straight into Lily's slightly amused face. "You're not having a good day, are you, Siri?" she asked.

Slightly ashamed of themselves, the two got up. That had been so very close to going beyond play fighting, which was doubtlessly why Lily had stopped them. 

"So, Jamie, are you going to tell us what you were laughing at?" asked Remus

"Sirius," said James infuriatingly.

"Sirius what?" snapped Lily.

"Sirius had got a crush. On Lydia!" James announced triumphantly. The other three collapsed into gales of laughter. 

"No, I don't!"

"Sirius and Lydia, sitting in a tree," sang Remus,

"K- I – S – S – I – N – G!" they all finished.

Sirius went bright red. "I don't like her!"

His friends looked back at him sceptically. 

"Oh, so I do. What's wrong with that?" he asked defensively.

"Er…she's two years older than you," said James. 

"She's the Captain of the Quidditch team," said Lily.

"And she's going out with your brother," ended Remus. hey all threw him shocked glances. "Oh, come on, it's so obvious!"

"Never mind, Sirius, never mind. This'll only embarrass you horribly in years to come," said James consolingly. 

Sirius walked off, but the others soon caught up with him, and the teasing continued all the way to the common room.

********************

"Could Remus Lupin please go and see Professor Dunworthy please?" the third year asked boredly. The five second years playing exploding snap looked up, and then at Remus. 

"It's probably my mum again," Remus said ruefully. They all knew that Remus' mother was frequently ill; James had told them it had been like that since he had met Remus, even if he didn't know what the illness was. 

"Oh, well, I hope she's alright," said Lily.

"Give her my love," added James. Remus nodded, and left the common room, looking preoccupied. The others turned back to their game, but their rapt attention had been broken. 

"I know," Sirius whispered in a loud stage whisper, "lets plan our revenge on the Slytherins!"

"Excellent!" beamed Lily. 

Unfortunately Luke was right behind them. 

"Oh no you don't!" he said fiercely. "I'm a prefect and if I hear a word about revenge I'll turn you straight in. you lost enough points last year without starting anything now!"

"But-"

"No buts, Sirius."

"You're sounding more like David everyday," James said scornfully. "Come on guys, I don't want to be near _him_!" He got up and his friends followed him out of the common room, Lily pausing to collect the snap cards and getting slightly singed in the process. 

"Where are we going?" she asked James.

"Kirrin, of course."

Kirrin was their secret room; it couldn't be entered without the password and only they could set the password.

"Of course, of course," mimicked Lily. "What am I, a bloody mind reader?"

"Shut up," said Sirius shortly. "We've more important things to think about now: Revenge." He said it with a capital 'R'. 

They reached Kirrin, entered and raided their stash of chocolate frogs, then sat down on one of the beds. 

"Well, Mr Ideas-Man, what's the idea?" James asked Sirius.

"The idea was to discuss revenge. I never once said I had an idea for revenge."

They all groaned. They were useless at this: actually sitting down and thinking of things. Inspiration came much more easily when they were doing other things, especially homework. 

"Nothing," said Lily.

"Nowt," said James.

"Not a dickybird," said Peter.

"Bloody useless lot you are then!" Sirius said. Lily and James bristled at him.

"You started-" 

"It's your bloody-"

"Just joking. You two are _so_ easy to wind up!"

if looks could kill, Sirius would have dropped dead right then.

**********************

It was hours and hours later and they still nobody had thought of any ideas. They were full of chocolate frogs and pumpkin juice, and Peter had fallen asleep. 

"I don't know about you guys, but I'm going to bed," said Sirius.

Lily yawned widely and slid off the bed. "Me too. Night all." Peter snored and James yawned in response. Sirius had already pulled off all unnecessary clothing and climbed into bed. Lily got into another one of the beds. "Night," called James sleepily.He, in turn, he got a snore from Sirius.

"Night Jamie," Lily called, but it was drowned out by the sound of the wind crashing outside. It was a wild night, Lily thought sleepily, before sleep claimed her.

************************

A particularly loud rumble of thunder woke Lily. The room was pitch black and she could hear the frightening sound of the trees whipping outside. She looked towards the window, but no light had come in; the clouds had obscured the full moon.

A flash of fork lightning lit up the room suddenly, followed seconds later by a deafening crack. Lily shivered; this was one of the worst storms she had ever experienced. Then, in the eerie silence following the thunder, Lily heard a most unexpected noise. Someone was crying. But who?

"Peter?" she called, thinking he was the most likely person. The crying intensified, but lightning lit the room again, and Lily saw that it was James who was sat up with his head in his hands and his covers pulled around him. 

"James?" she called more softly. When he didn't answer, Lily decided. She jumped out of her bed into the cold air, scurried across the room and landed on James' bed with a plop. 

"Jamie? What's wrong?" she asked quietly. "Are you afraid of the storm?"

James looked up at Lily. His eyes were big and round and red, and tears were running down his cheeks. He opened his mouth to reply, but lightning flashed across the sky and he dissolved into tears once more. "Is it the storm?" Lily asked, more insistently. 

James nodded his head. He wished Lily hadn't seen him like this: thunderstorms were his secret fear, and only his grandmother knew of it. So far he had kept it from his friends by hiding under the covers to cry whenever there was a storm, but he lived in fear. Tonight he had been off guard, and he had forgotten that Lily was in the room. He wasn't worried that Sirius or Peter would wake up, they were such heavy sleepers, but he had forgotten about Lily. 

He was so lost in his fear and his thoughts that he was thoroughly startled when Lily put her arms around him. She hugged him tight, whispering in his ear, "It's ok, the storm can't hurt you," and James relaxed slightly. It didn't last for long, as soon as the next crack of thunder echoed around the room he tensed again and began crying anew. 

They sat like that for a long time, until the storm rolled away, leaving just the rain to lash at the windows. It was still dark, and Lily thought it must be about 3am. When James had stopped shaking she climbed out of the bed and fumbled in her discarded robes for a tissue. "Here," she said, handing it to James, before climbing back onto the bed.

"Now listen, Jamie," she said, looking him straight in the eye. "I know about this now, and you don't have to go through this alone. Whenever-"

"I'm pathetic!" James said, cutting her off. "You thought I was Peter."

"It's nothing to be ashamed of, everybody's scared of something," Lily consoled.

"What about you?"

"I don't know mine yet." Lily grinned. "I'll probably find out at the worst time possible, like when we're fighting the Slytherins or something."

James managed a small smile. "Ok, but please don't tell the others."

"Not if you don't want me to. But seriously, I know now, so whenever there's a thunderstorm and you're scared, you come and get me, or I'll come and find you, ok?"

James nodded. 

"But now I want to sleep. So night again, Jamie."

Lily lay down where she was, and closed her eyes. She was surprised when James lay down beside her. He put his arms around her waist. "You don't mind, do you, Lil? Its just that – I'm still scared."

Knowing how much it must have cost him to admit that, Lily said, "Course not." Looking down at James, she saw he was already asleep. 


	7. First Quidditch Match

Disclaimer: all recognisable characters belong to J Jean Gillatt Jean Gillatt 2 200 2001-11-06T20:29:00Z 2001-11-06T20:29:00Z 4 1575 8978 74 17 11025 9.2720 

Disclaimer: all recognisable characters belong to J.K. Rowling, and all you don't recognise and the plot belongs to me, but you know that by now anyway

Chapter 7: First Quidditch Match 

                James' first Quidditch match was exactly two weeks after he tried out for the team. Between the two he only had six practices, and though Lydia assured him he was a natural he couldn't help the nerves rising in his stomach. So of course he dealt with it by being even more extroverted than usual. The night before the Quidditch match saw them sitting around the fire in the best seats in the common room; seats which they had claimed for themselves, despite the fact that they were usually reserved for seventh years. 

                Sirius got up and began to pace. He, like the others, was almost as nervous as James and he couldn't sit still. "I want to do something!" he said petulantly. 

"Exploding snap?" suggested Lily. 

"Boring," replied Sirius.

"Chess?" asked Remus.

"No, no, no!" Sirius exclaimed. It was the same with everything they suggested; he was just edgy.

"I know," Sirius said at last, with the grin that made Slytherins fear for their lives, "lets play assault courses!"

"Cool!" Lily cried, while the others stared blankly back at them. 

"What you have to do is this," Sirius began to explain, jumping up onto Lily's chair. "Jump from a piece of furniture," he landed on Remus' chair, "to another piece of furniture," he landed _on _James, not quite accidentally, "and see how many you can get around without touching the floor." He took a hump leap towards the next group of fluffy armchairs, but didn't quite make it. He caught his foot on the arm and tumbled to the floor, landing with his bottom in the air. "That was just a practice," he said hurriedly, "so it doesn't count."

"I don't think this is such a good-" Peter began, but James cut him off.

"Excellent, my go!" He took a quick look around the room and started at what was strategically the best point. Lily gave him time only to get a few chairs ahead before following, and Remus was so eager to play that he didn't even give her that. 

                A very sore Sirius and a very worried Peter followed their progress around the room, laughing as one or the other of them landed next to a startled girl who hadn't been watching. The three of them were causing much noise and laughter. At one point James managed a super-long jump and missed one chair completely, landing on the next almost on top of Lydia, who was curled up next to Orion. Lydia shrieked and Orion shot James an extremely annoyed look.

"Sorry, didn't mean to disturb anything," James said, winking impishly. 

"You little brat," Orion yelled, reaching for him, but James was gone and Orion was faced by a grinning Lily. 

                They made it half way around the room before running into any real obstacles. A huge cupboard reared up in front of James, the only route to the safety of the next chair on the other side. They either had to climb it, or forfeit. 

                James prepared himself, readying to jump. He pushed off so hard from the arm of the chair that it toppled over, causing Lily to hurl a string of abuse after him, but he was already clinging to the edge of the cupboard and scrabbling to pull himself up. Lily and Remus arrived next to him, having found it easier with the chair at that angle, and they were now huddled on the dusty top of the cupboard, peering over the edge at the next chair. 

Except the chair was no longer there.

                The three looked at each other with wild eyes, then at the rest of the common room. the chair was now on the other side of the room, and standing next to it were Orion and Luke. 

"Hello kiddies! Having fun?" Orion called cheerfully. 

"You put that chair back!" Lily yelled.

"Why?" asked Luke. "With you three up there we can have a peaceful evening. Even Sirius can't get into trouble on his own."

"But we'll just jump down," Remus said logically.

"Oh really? Well, this is just to get you back for disturbing me just now," Orion called, with the evil look so often seen in his younger brother. 

"And for saying I was like David," Luke added.

They both reached for their wands. "Wingardium Leviosa!" they cried, and the cupboard, with Lily, Remus and James clinging to the top, rose into the air and floated lazily towards the ceiling. 

"You bastards!" Lily shrieked. They were now floating about 30 foot above a very hard looking floor, and none of them fancied jumping. They didn't even have their wands, which had been with Sirius but were now visible poking from Luke's trouser pocket. Orion and Luke patted each other on the back. "Now for Sirius," they said, going to sit next to him. 

"So, Sirius, how's history of magic going?"

"I found that Goblin revolt really interesting. I did some extra research, and I found out some little known facts. Firstly, the drummer boy-"

"ARGHHH!" screamed Sirius, and he took off towards the dorms, terrified of a night spent talking about history of magic. The common room burst into laughter as Peter followed him up the stairs. 

                "We're not going to go quietly, you know," Lily called from the cupboard.

"We're not?" asked James.

There was the sound of a punch, before Lily said, "Of course not!" There were some more scuffles, broken up only by Remus' "Will you_ please_ take a look at where we are?" there was silence only for a second, then a solo voice started:

"Oh come, all ye faithful,

Joyful and triumphant,"

 When two more, all doing their best impression of Sirius, who couldn't sing a note, followed the voice.

                The common room resounded with groans. "If you wanted to get rid of them, couldn't you have locked the brats in their room?" someone yelled over the caterwauling. 

                So that was why James, Remus and Lily found themselves being floated up the stairs not long after that, cruelly tipped off the cupboard into the boys dorm, and why they were faced with a magically locked door when they turned around. They all burst into hysterical laughter.

*********************

                They all woke late the next morning. The door had remained locked all night, opening only briefly to let Frank in, so Lily had had to stay there. She had slept in Sirius' bed, he was her best friend, after all, and the two had spent the whole night fighting over who should have the most space in the bed. They had refused to shut up, and so nobody had got to sleep until well into the next morning. When Remus woke up at 10.30 and realised it was only half an hour until the Quidditch match started, he yelled loudly, startling Peter and Frank awake. 

                "Oh shit! Quick, wake James up, he's meant to be there in quarter of an hour!" 

Peter obligingly shook James, but James, being James, didn't even stir. "On bloody hell," Remus cried, "Wait a moment. Wake the other two, then."

                Peter advanced nervously towards Sirius' bed, Remus ran out of the room and Frank hid behind his bed. Sirius and Lily did _not_ like being woken up. But they looked so sweet and innocent spread-eagled across the bed that Peter forgot what they were really like, and shook them both awake roughly. 

"Ugh…what…too bright," Lily muttered almost unintelligibly, but Sirius shot to full alertness at once. 

"You git!" he yelled, throwing himself at Peter. They tumbled to the floor, in between Sirius' shouts of "was having the best dream ever!" and "all those dancing merpeople!"

                Luckily, before Peter could be seriously damaged, Remus strode into the room with a large jug of water. "Ahem," he cleared his throat loudly, "Quidditch!"

"Damn!" Sirius jumped off Peter. "Quick, wake Jamie up!"

"What does it look like I'm doing?" Remus asked irritably. "I seem to remember this being the best way." He poured the water over James, and James yelled as loudly as he had on their far distant second day of school when Lily had done exactly the same thing. He sat straight up in bed, his normally messy hair flattened to his head. "Why, Remus?"

"You have exactly fifteen minutes to get to the changing rooms." 

At that, James yelled even more loudly, if that was possible, rummaged for his brand new Quidditch robes amongst the mess in his cupboard and headed for the showers at a flat run, muttering "Shit, shit, shit," the whole way.

Meanwhile, Sirius was attempting to pull Lily out of bed. "No, sleep," she was saying firmly, before turning over onto her front. Unfortunately, this revealed her ankle, and Sirius grabbed it, pulling. Lily tumbled to the floor and glared up at Sirius, just as Luke arrived to see what all the noise was about. 

"What _is _going on?" he asked the room in general, although he was looking rather hard at Lily, who was sitting on the floor in one of Sirius' t-shirts. 

"The walls wont answer you," Sirius replied irritably, before Remus clapped his hands. 

"Fifteen minutes, people! Peter, go and get Jamie some breakfast." Peter slouched off, knowing better than to argue at a time like this, and Luke got the fright of his life when the other three rushed out of the room after him, all clutching bundles of clothes, and all ignoring him completely. 

"What is going on?" Luke asked again, a trace of puzzlement in his voice. 

"They woke up late," Frank answered. 

"What! You mean my git of a little brother, who's first Quidditch match starts in 25 minutes, has only just woken up?" Luke demanded, looking livid.

"Well, it was your fault," Frank said cheekily, "locking them all in here. They didn't stop arguing all night!"

***********************

                Just over fifteen minutes later, James and his Nimbus appeared in the Great Hall with Lily, Sirius and Remus, none of whom looked like they had dressed properly. Lily and Sirius' hair was still wet from the shower, while Remus hadn't even bothered to wash his and it stood up almost as badly as James'. Their 'only just woken up' state was accentuated by the fact that Sirius still hadn't noticed he had Peter's robes on, despite the fact that he couldn't move his arms. 

                Lydia frowned at James when she saw him; he still had sleep around his eyes and Luke had told her what had happened. "I never thought you'd pull something like this, James," she said disapprovingly. 

"It was your fault Lily didn't shut up all night!" James retorted. Orion grinned at them from behind Lydia. 

"How was your night on the floor, Lily? Or did one of the boys give you their bed?"

"No, I slept with Sirius. It was really nice," Lily said coyly. 

Orion choked on his tea. "You what? Sirius…"

"Yes?" Sirius answered innocently. 

"Oh, God," Orion muttered. "My baby brother! Mum'll kill me, I'm supposed to be looking after you…"

"You've got a really dirty mind, you know. I only meant that we slept in the same bed," Lily interrupted. 

Orion flushed bright red. "You little…" They all laughed.

"Shush, all of you, it's time to go!" Lydia rounded up the Quidditch players.

"Good luck, Jamie!" they chorused.

"Don't fall off!" Lily added sweetly.

***********************


	8. Peter's Birthday

Disclaimer: all recognisable characters are the property of J Jean Gillatt Jean Gillatt 2 275 2001-11-10T19:44:00Z 2001-11-10T19:44:00Z 5 2123 10120 213 91 12217 9.2720 

Disclaimer:  all recognisable characters are the property of J.K. Rowling and I intend to make no money from them. Anything you don't recognise, including the plots, belongs to me, Emilily. 

Chapter 7: Peter's Birthday 

                It was Peter's birthday in mid-November, and they had planned a surprise party for him in their dorm that night. Lily had taken to sleeping in the boy's room quite often now; returning late from one of their Quidditch raids, she would just climb into whomever's bed happened to be nearest, and nobody who knew about it batted an eyelid anymore. So they pretended to forget about Peter's birthday, and with guilty pleasure they watched as he got more and more miserable all day, not even perking up during History of Magic, his favourite lesson.  James, as he was the one Peter liked best, was assigned to distract him that evening while the others crept down to the 'library' to get what they needed. 

                It was gone nine o'clock, and as little second years, they definitely weren't supposed to be out of the Common Room this late, so they were trying to be extremely quiet. It wasn't working. 

"OW! Lily, you stepped on my foot!"

"Sorry, Re, but there's not much space behind this statue."

"Shush! We'll get caught!" Sirius always seemed to have a natural talent for this kind of thing. He could move absolutely silently when he wanted to (but that usually required too much effort) and could hear a teacher a mile off (or so he boasted). 

"Shush my arse, you're-" Remus began.

"Shush!" said Sirius, a bit more insistently. 

Despite numerous moments like this, they made it to the kitchens undetected. Slipping inside, they were recognised immediately and the elves began loading them up with all their favourites, including a stoppered pitcher of pumpkin juice. "Thanks, this is absolutely wonderful!" Sirius gushed, knowing exactly how to please them, as he did with everyone.

                They crept back outside, laden down with food, and began their way back to the tower as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, as they reached the other side of the great hall, they ran into a group of Slytherins, including Sirius' favourite cousin, Snape. 

                Both boys stiffened immediately. Snape was still sore about Gryffindor winning the Quidditch, and Sirius, of course, still wanted revenge over last year's 'incidents'.

"Well, if it isn't Evans and co.?" Snape said, ignoring Sirius. 

"Well if it isn't the great big prat?" Sirius jeered.

"Stepping in to defend your girlfriend, Black? No, wait, Potter's your girl, isn't he?" 

Sirius growled at him. "Leave James out of this, Snape, or are you just too scared to insult me directly?" Remus started off-loading what he was carrying onto Lily, so that he could step in between the two boys if things got nasty.

"You're just as stupid as all your Gryffindor friends, Black. I've always said that Gryffindor should stand for stupidity, but the there would be even less reason to want to be in it, wouldn't there?" 

All Sirius' food went flying as he hurled himself at Snape; luckily he had not been carrying the pumpkin juice. Remus grabbed him before he could do any major damage, though, and said very clearly, "Remember why we're here, Siri?"

 Sirius let go of Snape with a snarl and picked up what he had dropped, then he, Lily and Remus walked away. As he left, Sirius paused to make a very rude gesture towards Snape, who replied "Piss off, Black."

************************

                "Where have you been?" James asked irritably when Remus poked his head around the dormitory door.  "Come in, quick, Peter's not here!"

"I had a little chat with Sevvy, that's why we were so long," Sirius said, following Remus in. 

"Chat, my arse," snorted Lily. "Now, hurry up. Do you think we should get all the other second years?"

"What, the girls?" Sirius asked in shock. 

"Frank, yes; girls, no," James said firmly. 

"They're really not that bad," Lily said persuasively, "and if you don't like them you never have to talk to them again."

"Ok, then, but it's your fault if this goes wrong," Sirius said. 

"Cool!" Lily started jumping up and down. "I'll go and get them all then!" she cried, bouncing out of the room. 

"I have a bad feeling about this," kicking any mess, including discarded underwear, under the beds.

"OW!" Remus yelped, as a 'Happy Birthday' banner felon top of him. "But Lily's right, you two, what can happen that's _that_ bad?" he said more calmly. 

"Everything," James and Sirius muttered glumly. 

*************************

                When Lily reached the Common Room, she could see no sign of the girls from her room, but she could see Frank, who was talking to one of his third year friends. "Frankie," she called as she danced over to him, "you're wanted upstairs!" he gave her a very funny look, so she whispered in her ear, "Peter's surprise party!" Realization dawned on Frank's face. "Oh, see you tomorrow, Dan," he said to his friend. This time it was Frank's friend's turn to give _Frank_ a funny look, before Frank headed towards the dormitory stairs.  Now for the girls, Lily thought, with just a trace of apprehension.

                She continued to dance up the stairs to her own, seldom visited, dormitory. She pushed open the door. "The wanderer returns," Andrea said snidely as she walked in. since Lily had finally met the girls properly at the beginning of term, Andrea had been nothing but rude to Lily, who couldn't think of any reason at al for this. I'm not going to let it get to me tonight, Lily thought stubbornly. So she laughed. "Not for long, I'm afraid! You see, it's Peter's birthday today, and we're having a surprise party for him now and you're all invited!" Lily said with the air of someone giving a huge present, and it obviously annoyed Andrea greatly. 

"Why would we want to go to your party?" Andy said coldly. 

"Well, _you_ don't have to come if you don't want to, but-" Lily began.

"I think it's a great idea!" Vicky cut in firmly. 

"Me too," Tabitha said, so softly that Lily could barely hear her. 

"What about you, Zoe?" Lily asked.

"I suppose I could come," Zoe replied, smiling.  

"Come on, then, or we wont get there in time!" Lily exclaimed, excited by the success of her plan. 

                The little line of girls followed her down to Common Room, and then, as discreetly as possible, they slipped up the boy's staircase. Lily then knocked on the door, and there were some frantic scufflings from inside the room, before Sirius' rather strained whisper called "Come in." Lily pushed open the door to reveal a room that was completely dark.

                "SUR-" everyone in the room yelled, breaking off when they saw who it was.

"You great twats," Lily giggled, "it's only me!"

"We can see that now, moron," James snapped.

"Not my fault you're stupid," Lily teased. "Where is Pete, anyway?" Three more curious faces turned towards James.

"He went to the library to find you. I told him to come straight back if you weren't there!" James said defensively.

"Well you'd better go and find him, hadn't you?" Lily said. 

James scowled and walked out of the room, angry at being left out again, and Lily began introducing the girls to the boys.  Unsurprisingly, as the boys were always in trouble in lessons, the girls already knew who they were.

"Nice to meet you all," Remus said courteously, glancing at Sirius, whose face looked thunderous.  "But hadn't we better hide now? We don't want to give it away again."

"It was rather obvious what you were doing, wasn't it, Vicky?" Lily asked, grinning. 

"What? Oh, yeah…" Vicky mumbled vaguely. She had not taken her eyes off Remus since she had come into the room, and it was making Remus very uncomfortable. Sirius and Lily exchanged knowing glances. 

                With a little flick of his wand, Sirius suddenly extinguished all the lights in the room. Everybody immediately began milling about, bumping into each other, and there was a loud thud as someone fell over.

"Sirius Black, put the lights back on!" Andrea yelled indignantly. All Sirius did was laugh manically, thoroughly enjoying the mayhem he had caused.

"Oh, for God's sake, are you all wizards or not?" Lily snapped.  With a flash of light, the candles were relit. The scene was revealed: Sirius, sat in the middle of his bed, chest heaving with laughter, Remus holding on to Tabitha, who looked dazed, Vicky blinking owlishly in the light, Zoe standing stock still, exactly where she had been, and Lily with her hands on her hips, laughing at Andrea, who was sprawled on the floor where she had fallen. 

"Everybody get into position. Then I'll turn the lights off," Lily ordered.  They all scrambled into place and the room went black, not a moment too soon, for they suddenly heard loud arguing voices coming up the stairs.

"You could have told me they wouldn't be there, James."

"How was I to know? Stop whining, Pete."

                The room held its breath with expectation. The door creaked open, and Peter suddenly came into view as James pushed him from behind. 

"SURPRISE!" they yelled, and Tabby could have sworn the floor shook. 

Peter stepped backwards in shock, tripped over Sirius' discarded shoes and fell flat onto his bottom.

"How did those get there?" Sirius asked innocently.

"Happy Birthday!" everyone else cried.

The party had begun.

**********************

                It was not a success. The girls got bored too quickly, and when they suggested that everybody played 'spin-the-pumpkin-juice-pitcher', they got rather offended because the boys (and Lily) looked utterly revolted and refused. Their food ran out quickly, thanks to the boys (and Lily) eating it at top speed, so consequently Zoe, Tabitha, Andrea and Vicky left about an hour later, Vicky giving them an apologetic smile as she left. 

                "Vicky has a crush on you, Re!" Lily said as soon as the voices had faded. 

"She didn't stop staring at you all night!" Sirius added wickedly. 

"It did make for boring company, though," mused James. "What with her mooning over Remus, Zoe and Tabitha not saying hardly a word, and Andrea glaring at Lily the whole time, they were very boring."

"Never mind, it was worth a try," Sirius said. "Now for pressies!"

 "For me?" Peter asked tremulously.

"No, for Lily, you prat!" Sirius said affectionately. 

                Frank felt unwanted now that the girls were gone. He often did. It was hard, sharing a room with the four very best of friends, especially since Lily seemed to be in the dorm more and more now. "I think I'll go to bed," he said abruptly.

"Night, Frank."

"Sleep tight!"

"Bite the bed bugs when they bite!" was Sirius' typical nighttime offering.

"And you," Frank replied, proved right in his suspicions by the fact that they hadn't asked him to stay. As he climbed into bed, he could see the five gather on Remus' bed and pull the curtains tight around him.

***************************

                "Me first! Me first!" Sirius said, bouncing up and down. He presented Peter with a big box of sweets. "Watch out, there are some odd ones in there!" he added. Peter looked at the box apprehensively. Remus then presented him with two books: one called 'Homework Help for the Helpless Wizard', and the other 'Fifty Fun Curses to Make Your Friends Mad'.  "Thanks!" Peter grinned gratefully.  James then gave him a pair of socks, which flashed ridiculous colours. "They're mood socks!" he claimed triumphantly. "So we'll know when to stay away from you!"

"I think you'd have been better giving them to moody little Siri!" Remus said snidely.

"Shut up," Sirius snapped, unable to think of a good reply.

"Now for mine! Look!" Lily cried, holding out a large, red teddy bear. The boys gaped at her. "Listen, my mum got them. There's one for each of us, mine's called Kit Kat! Peter's is Snickers!"

"Cool!" Peter said, reaching out his arms for his new friend.

"_And_ I charmed them with a never-ending cheering charm by the way."

Sirius pouted. "I want mine."

"You can't have him."

"Why not?"

"'Cos it's not your birthday."

"You mean I have to wait 'til June?" Sirius wailed.

"Don't worry, Siri, we'll find them," James soothed.  Secretly, he wanted his teddy too. He hadn't had a teddy since David had declared he was too old for teddies and taken away Brutus when he was eight. 

"No, you wont, I have them hidden." Having caused a lot of annoyance, Lily put her head down and went to sleep. After James had whispered, "We'll find them," to Sirius, the boys did the same. 


	9. The Fake Argument

Chapter 9: the Fake Argument

Disclaimer:  all recognisable things in this story belong to the great JKR, and in no way do they belong to me. Nor do I intend to make any money out of this. Please don't sue me, I have no money. 

Archive: anywhere you want, as long as you tell me where. 

                A few days later, Remus woke up feeling very happy. He showered and got dressed very joyfully, humming to himself, then watched with anticipation as his four lazy friends got out of bed. As usual, Sirius had to shake Lily and James awake roughly. The two were curled around each other in James' bed; they always slept as close together as possible. Predictably, their identical first actions on waking up were to scream at each other and pull away as fast as possible, then swear at Sirius for waking them. It was a morning ritual whenever Lily chose to sleep in James' bed, and it made Remus even happier. 

                "Wipe that unbearably smug grin off your face, damn early rising git."

"Morning to you too, Lil."  

They all hurried out of the dorm room, and Remus relaxed back on his bed, waiting for it to begin. He didn't have to wait for long. 

"S IRIUS BLACK!" James yelled, from the direction of the showers. 

"James Potter," Sirius mimicked in a high voice, then seconds later he bellowed,  "J AMES POTTER!" Remus laughed to himself. This was really too funny. From the showers he heard another raised voice. "James? Sirius? What have you done?" Peter squeaked loudly. By now, Remus was almost unable to control himself. He lost control completely when Lily stepped through the door. 

                "JA MES! S IRIUS!" she screamed, and then took in Remus' laughing face. "Remus! It was you, wasn't it?" she accused. 

"Shush," he laughed. "Wait 'til you see the others."

                With perfect timing James, Sirius and Peter burst through the door. James and Sirius were shouting at each other, and Peter simply looked terrified. The sight of them caused Remus to laugh so much that he fell backwards off his bed, and even Lily's angry frown twitched a bit.

                Lily's face was completely red, the arms poking out of her robes were red, and she looked like an oversized tomato in black clothing. But she was nothing to the boys. Peter had been stretched; he was about six foot tall and oddly distorted, and he didn't look like he liked his new, improved viewpoint at all. In fact, he looked sea sick. Sirius stood, glowering at James, in just his boxers, which was obviously as dressed as he had managed to get before he realised. "My hair!" he wailed. He was completely bald; all of his long, precious black hair had disappeared. It didn't help that Sirius was very vain of his hair. As for James, he stood gesturing furiously at Sirius with all of his hands. All eight of them. 

                Suddenly Lily remembered why they were there. "You!" she shrieked, pointing at Remus' bed. "You did this!"

"Yes," giggled Remus from under the bed, "and it was so funny."

"And you are so dead." James threatened. 

"My hair!" Sirius wailed again. 

"Oh shut up," James snapped. "_You _can cover that up. _I _have eight arms."

"James, you have eight arms," Lily said.

"Really, Lily? I'd never have noticed."

"Ok, I wont say it now. My brilliant plan to get us out of this."

"Sorry, Lily, I'm sorry!" James pleaded. 

"He's sorry," Peter added.

"Ok, then, go and beat up Remus with all those extra arms until he takes the spells off," Lily said with perfect logic. 

Remus came back to earth with a bang. That was definitely a side effect he had not thought of. He sat up suddenly and banged his head on the bed. 

"Ow. Ok, I'll take them off. No eight-armed beatings, ok?"

His friends glared at him as he performed the counter spells. 

"I just thought it would help James with his Quidditch, that's all. And Sirius is really too vain of his hair," he explained. With a single glare his friends turned and left, uttering not a single word.

"Bollocks," Remus swore. 

                They ignored him all through breakfast; Lily, James and Sirius with the single-mindedness only they could show, and Peter with an apologetic smile as he followed his heroes, with annoyed Remus even more than the others did. When they got to their first lesson, Potions, Professor Headley stopped them at the door. "We will be working with partners today," she said, with a sweet smile towards the Gryffindors. "When I call your name, go and sit with your partners.

                "Avery, with Pettigrew. Lestrange with Evans," Lestrange looked furious at this; he had never quite forgiven Lily for beating him up in their previous year.  "Nott with Potter, Rosier with Black, and Snape," she smiled warmly at her favourite student, "with Lupin." 

"She's enjoying herself so much, isn't she?" Sirius whispered to James as he passed. Unfortunately, the professor heard him.  

"Ten points from Gryffindor, Black."

However, Sirius was right, Headley had enjoyed herself doing this. Evans with Lestrange was a good pairing: he hated her guts. Black and Rosier had the shortest tempers in the school, so a fight was only a matter of time, Avery would pick on Pettigrew perfectly, and Snape…. She had wanted to put Potter or Black with Snape, but genuinely feared lives would be lost. So Lupin, the quiet one, (quiet for them), had got Snape, and it would be interesting to see what happened there, while Potter was stuck with Nott, who was naturally annoying.  Headley couldn't wait for sparks to fly, as she watched eagerly for the success of her plan to make Gryffindor House loose points. 

                "This project," she explained, "will take you right up to the end of term. I expect it to be handed in one day before the holidays begin." The Gryffindors grinned. "Your task is to research how to make a medium strength truth potion. Don't look so happy, Black; all such books are in the Restricted Section. You will have to this on your own. You may begin discussing your research," she smiled. 

Headley watched the discussion. It did not turn out quite as she had hoped or expected. 

                Lestrange turned to Lily. "Hello Evans," he said, a menacing smirk on his face. 

"Hello Lestrange, or should I call you Mervyn? How are you today?" Lily asked brightly. "Lessons going ok? What's your favourite? Mines Charms, by the way, I just find it so easy…." As Lily chattered on, the look on Lestrange's face was a mixture of 'what's going on?', 'a Gryffindor is being nice', and 'oh my God! It's a pretty girl! How do I act?'. Lily grinned triumphantly.  She had thoroughly confused the boy. "Are you ok?" she asked. "You look a bit strange." 

"I'm – I'm fine," Lestrange managed to choke out. 

"Oh good," Lily said, and then continued to talk. 

                Peter, meanwhile, was not letting Avery bully him; he was standing up for himself. Potter was snarling at Nott, telling him to shut up, and Nott was obeying, looking terrified, while even that lunatic Black seemed to have come to some sort of agreement with Evan Rosier, for they were completely ignoring each other. Headly was not amused.  As for Snape and Lupin…they were talking quietly, so quietly she couldn't hear. 

                "What are we going to do about this project, Snape?" Remus asked. 

"What do you mean, 'what are we going to do about it'?" 

"Well, are we going to work together, or are we going to completely ignore each other, like Sirius and Rosier for example?" 

"Work together, of course. I want to pass, you know." Remus wanted to say, you could anyway, you're a Slytherin, but for the sake of peace he restrained himself.  "Are you not talking to them?" Snape asked suddenly. 

"No. We had an argument." And it's none of your business, he thought. 

"It's just that, well, you know," Snape looked nervous. 

"Yes?"

"If you ever need a friend, I'm here. I've always thought you were the nicest of the lot," Snape finished in a rush. Remus' face must have registered blank shock, like his mind, for Snape said quickly, "Sorry if I startled you."

"No, it's ok," Remus replied vaguely. His brain was working and there was only one thought there: revenge. If he became Snape's friend, think of what could be done with that truth potion…

***********************

                "Quick, common room!" Remus yelled at his friends at break time. 

"What?" they asked, too intrigued to remain angry. When they got to their dormitory, Remus finally slowed down, and consciously relaxed his breathing. "I – have – a – plan!" he gasped out, "for revenge!"

"What?" they all yelled, again. 

"Listen to this." He told them what Snape had said in Potions, and his thoughts about it. By the end, James and Sirius looked like they were going to explode with happiness, but Lily looked unusually sombre. 

"It's playing dirty," she said, and then grinned widely. "But they played dirty first. Let the games begin!"

***********************

                Unfortunately, the plan required some sacrifices on Remus' part. Obviously, he couldn't talk to his friends in public, so they compromised; Peter was no longer involved in the 'argument', and Remus worked with him in all their lessons. It did occur to him that Snape might be playing Remus along as much as Remus was playing him, but over the course of their short friendship, Remus became convinced that this was not the case. Snape seemed to genuinely like him. Occasionally this made him feel slightly guilty, but then he would think of a picture imprinted on his mind: a bruised and battered and very young-looking Sirius, crying in Lily's arms, and the reasons for the deception and the associated anger would come flooding back. 

                He began to spend more and more time alone with his friends, usually in Kirrin, and the older students, with their mock exams to study for, breathed sighs of relief. The five just hoped that none of the Gryffindors would mention to a member of another house that that Remus Lupin was still the best of friends with the others in the privacy of the common room. Out of the common room, Remus could be seen more and more with Severus Snape. 

                Remus had had to manufacture a much bigger argument to tell Snape about. He focused it on Sirius, knowing that Snape hated him the most, so he would believe whatever Remus told him.

"You really hate them, don't you?" Snape asked, as he and Remus walked to lunch behind Sirius, James and Lily, who were laughing at one of James' jokes. Despite the fact that he wanted nothing more than to be with his three friends rat that moment, Remus answered steadily, "Yes, I do. The bastards think so much of themselves."  He had discovered that this was what Snape hated most about them all. "And James is ten times worse since he got on the Quidditch team."

"Instead of going to lunch, and having to put up with _them,_ do you want to go somewhere else?" Snape asked. 

"Like where?" Remus asked, puzzled. 

"The Slytherin common room. Or my room, if you're scared of the Slytherins."

Alarm bells rang through Remus' head. Did Snape really trust him this much, or was it an ambush? It didn't take Remus long to make up his mind, though. "Wait a moment while I tell Peter, then, I said I'd see him at lunch."

"Ok," Snape frowned, watching Peter, who was already sitting at the Gryffindor table. 

"Hey Pete," Remus said quietly when he got there, "Snape's taking me to the Slytherin common room! Tell the others, ok?" 

Peter looked positively terrified. "Re – Remus…" he stuttered. 

"Just tell them, ok?" Remus snapped. He knew he was taking a risk, and he didn't need Peter to point it out to him. He grabbed up two bread rolls before crossing to Snape.  "Present," he said, handing one to Snape. 

"Come quickly, then, the darlings are giving us dirty looks," Snape said, indicating the Gryffindor table with his head. It was true; Lily, James and Sirius were staring daggers at Snape and Remus. Presumably Peter had told them. 

"I don't know why you're still friends with that Pettigrew," Snape said as they left the hall. "He just goes running to his darling Potter with everything you tell him."

"I have to have a friend in my own house, Sev," Remus said lightly. 

"I suppose." Snape replied. He led Remus out of the Great Hall and down a passage towards the dungeons. It got steadily darker and darker as they went. Snape suddenly drew to a halt in front of a blank stonewall. 

"Err, you might not like the password," he said uneasily. "'Death to Gryffindor'." A concealed door swung open, and Snape beckoned Remus into what was unmistakeably a dungeon, whether there were chairs and fireplaces there or not. It was mostly empty, as it was lunchtime, but the few students who were there gave Remus extremely nasty looks. Remus was glad to see that none of them were Lucius Malfoy, who had not looked pleased about Snape's friendship with him in the past few weeks. In fact, Malfoy looked like he was constantly itching to smash Remus' face in. 

"Shall we go up to my room?" Snape said nervously. 

"Yeah. What's with the password?"

"The House is angry that Gryffindor won the Quidditch, that's all."

"Oh, right, nothing then," Remus agreed sarcastically. 

"Look, its not my fault, ok?" 

"Sorry, sorry, it's just… I don't see why we always have to fight." 

"At least _we're _friends." 

"Yeah," Remus agreed, suppressing another pang of guilt. He followed Snape down some more stairs, and was surprised to find that when Snape had said 'his room', he meant it literally. He had a room to himself. Admittedly, it was small, but some people would do anything for this tiny bit of privacy. 

"You've got your own room," Remus stuttered in shock. 

"Yes, and?" Snape said, not understanding. 

"We have dorms, that all."

"Oh. Well, Slytherins aren't afraid of the dark like little Gryffindor bunnies who all have to sleep together," Snape sneered. 

"Shut up, Sevvy." 

                Remus looked around. The room was furnished in greens and silvers, of course, but it was quite a nice room nevertheless, with a bed, tow chairs, a wardrobe and a bedside table. Being Snape's room, it also had a cauldron in the corner, though it was empty at the moment. 

"What do you want to do?" Snape asked him. 

What did Snape's do in their spare time, Remus wondered. They weren't like Sirius', they didn't like to make lots of noise, nor were they like James' and Lily's, who liked to argue or plan mischief together, and they definitely weren't like Peter's, who liked to sit quietly and watch others. He realised that he had no idea what Snape was interested in, other than Potions. 

                "I don't know," he said eventually, "what do you want to do?"

"What about a game of wizard chess?" Snape asked. 

"Cool!"

They spent an enjoyable lunchtime playing chess; or rather Remus thrashed Snape while Snape looked on grimly.  Remus fairly bounced down the corridor to Transfiguration when the bell rang. It was almost the weekend, which he could spend exclusively with his friends; he had won at chess; the full moon was two weeks away and he had been to the Slytherin Common Room! How jealous were his friends going to be?

"Whoa!" someone said as Remus crashed into him or her. He looked up. It was Sirius and he was just outside the classroom. 

"Hey Siri," Remus said, throwing his arm around his friend to give him a hug. "I've been in the Slytherin Common Room!" He carried on into the room, while behind him Sirius wailed "NO FAIR!" like a spoiled child. In fact, Remus amended, exactly like a Sirius who hadn't got what he wanted. "Tell me," Sirius continued. 

"Stop wailing like a baby and I will."

Sirius looked hurt, but shut up. James, Lily and Peter also crowded around, and listened attentively while Remus told his tale. 

"Why you?" Lily moaned when he had finished.

"'Cos Snape likes me," Remus said smugly.

"Can't think why," Sirius muttered, still sulking.

"This is VERY valuable information, Sirius," James said sternly. "Think how useful it could be!"

"We could –"

"Right class, sit down," Professor McGonagall barked as she walked in and began the lesson. 

**************************

                They were all doing very well with their projects. At some point, Sirius had had the bright idea of looking in his 'Moste Potente Potions' book, which they had found in Kirrin last year. It contained the strongest known available Truth Potion, Veritaserum, but Sirius was a natural at Potions, and he was able to scale it down so it was much weaker. He and James could be seen with their heads bent over it most evenings, and with their help, Lily wasn't failing completely. Besides that, she had so completely charmed Mervyn Lestrange that he was doing most of the work; she needed only to copy his notes. 

                Remus, of course, was having no trouble with his Potions partner, for Snape was the other expert on Potions in their year. Surprisingly, none of the others were having trouble either; Avery had stopped trying to bully Peter, and they now talked only when absolutely necessary, and the same was true of Sirius and Rosier. Lily still despised Lestrange, but he doted on her every word, and Nott did everything James told him to, he was so scared of the Gryffindors.    

                The time for testing the Potion was growing near. Remus had been having his fake argument with his friends for over four weeks, and his patience was wearing thin. Added to that, he was really beginning to despise Snape, as well as hating him. He proclaimed his hatred of the Gryffindors, especially Sirius, and he really did seem to hate them, yet he wanted nothing more than to be like them. 

                "What shall I ask Snape when he's drunk the potion?" Remus asked one night, whilst they were in Kirrin. 

"Whether Snape likes pussy-cats."

"Who he hates most." 

"Who he fancies."

"What kind of underwear he wears."

"Ew, Sirius, I did not want that mental picture."

"Sorry, Lils, but wouldn't it be funny if they had little teddies on or something?"

"Yeah, that would be funny, actually."

"Anything else?" Remus asked patiently.

"Loads!"

************************

                The big day finally dawned, and it was James' birthday to top it all off. James got his cheerful teddy from Lily that morning, a big furry blue one by the name of Mars, and he didn't let go of it until he had to leave the dormitory. It also meant that Sirius was not talking to him; having got his teddy, James now refused to go searching through Lily's things for Sirius' one. 

                Remus met up with Snape in an old classroom in the evening to try the Potion. It was due in the next day, and they were sure it would work, but Snape was _Snape,_ and would take no chances.  What he didn't know was that Remus' four friends were hidden in the room; Peter in the darkened window and the others in suits of armour as far apart as possible. They knew that the slightest eye contact while Snape was talking would cost them all their self-control. 

                Snape ladled two glassfuls of the Potion out of the cauldron.  "Bottoms up," he said to Remus, who merely sipped his, then tipped it back into the cauldron when Snape had his eyes shut from the taste. 

"Well, Sev, I'll go first, shall I?" Remus asked cheerfully, without even the slightest of misgivings. 

Authors Note:  he he, cliffhanger!  I'm mean, aren't I? The next chapter will be up soon, probably some time around Christmas, as I'll have more time then. For now, thanks to all who have reviewed in the past, and new ones are always a pleasure, flames included!


	10. A Very Merry Christmas

A Very Merry Christmas

Disclaimer:  the characters in this story do not belong to me, they belong o J.K. Rowling, and I don't want to make any money off of this, nor do I plan to. Therefore, please, don't sue a poor little girl at Christmas!

Authors Note: just to say a very merry Christmas to you all, and a very happy Eid to those of you who celebrate that as well, cos I know many of my friends do. Happy Holidays!

                "What shall I ask first, Sev?" Remus mused aloud. 

"Anything, I don't care," Snape answered with false nonchalance. 

"Ok, then, of all the people in the world, who do you hate the most?"

"You know who – wait, wait, that's not right, I cant decide between the three of them," Snape stuttered, obviously disconcerted by this discovery. 

"Who?" Remus asked, more insistently.

"James, Sirius and Lily, of course. Sirius, 'cos he's my cousin, and I'll never be able to escape him, he's my opposite, and everyone prefers him to me," Remus made no move to deny this, "James 'cos he a big-headed prat, and Lily because – well, I'd rather not say." Remus was a little surprised at Snape's eloquence; he didn't usually talk this much. 

"My turn, then," Snape said. "Who do _you _ hate the most?" 

Remus was glad he had said 'who' and not 'what', for he could feel even the tiny bit of truth potion that he had swallowed working inside him, and it would have forced him to say 'the moon'. But Snape had said 'who' so Remus was able to answer, with perfect honesty, "Headley."

"Really? Why?" Snape looked confused. 

"She only takes points of me and-" he broke off, having stopped himself just in time from saying 'my friends', "and for no apparent reason," he finished lamely. "Isn't that enough for you?"

"No, it's just… I thought you would have said Sirius, or even James."

"Oh, right. Well, my turn," Remus laughed, and began asking questions in such quick succession that Snape couldn't form any of his own.  He even asked Sirius' underwear question. It turned out that Snape wore green and silver Slytherin underwear; that he did not like cats, but longed for a hamster; that he was scared of Lucius Malfoy; that he had been a fat baby and that his mother, who had wanted a daughter, had dressed him in girls clothes until the age of five. He also still had his doll, Ella, in his trunk in his room, and he slept with her when he had nightmares. 

                Remus had saved the two most important questions until last, and now the hour the potion would work for was almost up. Snape wouldn't get a chance to ask any questions at all. Remus leaned back in his chair, looking suddenly serious. 

"Sev, whose idea was that attack on Sirius last year?"  Remus could afford to be blunt now; it didn't matter if Snape realised something was up. He estimated that he had about five minutes of supposed friendship with Snape left. 

"Me, of course," Snape said casually, "who else?" There was a sharp intake of breath from one of the suits of armour; the one James was hidden in.  Luckily Snape thought it was just a breeze. 

"And Sevvy, who do you fancy?" Remus asked, a smile playing around his mouth. 

"Do I have to," Snape moaned. 

"Yes."

"Well, promise you wont tell anyone?" When Remus nodded, he continued, "It's – it's – Lily Evans," he finished. Remus clapped his hands over his mouth so Snape wouldn't see him laughing and then belatedly remembered that his friends were in the room too.  

"EW!" shrieked Lily's voice. "Why _him!_" 

"You pervert!" James was yelling, trying to disentangle himself from the suit of armour. Peter stared in shock as Sirius raced towards Snape. "You dirty little – Slytherin!" Sirius shouted, unable to think of a worse name to call Snape. He reached Snape and grabbed him by the throat, shaking him hard. 

"Sirius, stop it," Remus frowned, looking ay Snape. "You can't fight someone who won't fight back." By now, James and Lily had freed themselves, and they stood on either side of Remus. 

                Snape was staring at Remus, his heart in his eyes. "You betrayed me, Remus?" he asked quietly. "You were friends with them all along?" 

"Yes, but I didn't betray you!" Remus exclaimed angrily. "This was revenge for last year, for what you did to Sirius."

"Oh really?" Snape's voice was deathly quiet now. "Really? Well, you'll pay, Lupin. All of you will. Slytherins don't forget easily, you know." With that, he spun around and stalked from the room, not looking back, leaving the Gryffindors to celebrate their victory. 

************************

                Snape didn't talk to, acknowledge, or otherwise may any communication with Remus in their Potions class the next day. He had, of curse, thought abut sabotaging the potion, but he knew that would cost him his own grade as well as Remus' and that knowledge made him even more sour about the whole incident. 

                It was a quiet day; the only eventful happening being when the simmering enmity between Sirius and Evan Rosier finally boiled over and Sirius punched him. This would have made Headley's entire Christmas, if Rosier had not punched Sirius back, forcing her to give them both detentions. 

                The first week of the Christmas holiday passed uneventfully as well. They had all decided to stay at school, not wanting to go home and have to play happy families, and they therefore awaited Christmas morning with even more excitement than usual. Christmas Eve saw them restless and over hyped, and by eight o'clock they had decided that they had to do something. Nothing so tame as a midnight broom ride would satisfy them this year; and it was unfortunate that Remus chose this time remember the never-used passages to Hogsmeade they had found the previous year. 

"Hogsmeade? That's the best idea ever, Remus!" Sirius enthused. Remus looked worried for just a moment, and then decided that he wanted too much to have some fun to worry right now. "Isn't it just?" he agreed, grinning. 

"You bet!" Lily and James said simultaneously, overriding Peter's token protests. As if anything Peter said could affect their decision. 

                They slipped out of the common room and down to the passage behind the statue of the old hag. It's hump opened easily, and they slid down, discarding their Hogwarts robes and putting on Muggle sweaters, then began the long trek to the other end of the tunnel. 

                Honeydukes was dark and shuttered when they arrived, but they managed to get to the front door without knocking anything over. The locked door opened easily from the inside, and once out, they locked it magically, deciding they could use the other tunnel to get back to school, even if it was longer. 

                Hogsmeade had closed early due to the date, and the only place open was the Three Broomsticks, so they headed there, never even thinking of what reason they would give if asked why they out of school at this hour. James pushed the heavy door of the bar open and they stepped inside, holding their breath. 

                Nobody but the barmaid even looked up. Heartened by this, Lily, Sirius, Remus and Peter went to sit at a table in the corner, while James took the money he had collected earlier and went to buy the drinks. "Five Butterbeers, please," he asked, his manner betraying not a hint of nervousness because he simply didn't feel any. There were no age restrictions on drinking in the magical world; in fact, there were few age restrictions on anything because of the Ministry's guilt over prohibiting underage magic during the holidays. So James felt he had every right to be there; the only rules they were breaking were school ones, and they were no business of anyone here. 

                The barmaid smiled at him. "Coming right up," she said. She was very pretty, and young, too; only about seventeen. She was just about to get the butterbeers when an older woman came up behind her; obviously the girls' mother, and _very_ obviously the landlady.        

"Rosmerta," the lady said, "who is this?"

"I don't know, mother. Why?" Rosmerta replied.

"Because he is obviously a Hogwarts student, and shouldn't be here."

Uh-oh, thought James. Where was Sirius the charmer when you needed him? "I'm James," he said aloud, "nice to meet you…?"

"Madam Jade," the woman replied, giving James a searching look. James might not realise it, but he could be just as charming as Sirius when he tried. "So you are from Hogwarts. Give me one reason why I shouldn't report you to Professor Dumbledore?"

James smiled his best, most innocent smile. "Because even if we do get caught, which we won't, you can't get in any trouble. It's not illegal to serve us, and how were you to know we were from Hogwarts?  In the meantime, you get more custom." He waited for her response, butterflies fluttering in his stomach, even though he knew his argument was sound. 

"You're very clever, I'll give you that," Madam Jade grinned. "Just don't you all flaunt the fact that you're here, ok? Go sit down, and Rosmerta will bring your drinks over." 

James breathed again. "Thanks," he grinned. 

                 He went over to the corner table his friends were sitting at. "Rosmerta's bringing the drinks over, ok?"  he said. The others ignored him and continued their conversation. 

"So Vicky fancies Remus, Sirius likes Lydia and Snape, disgustingly, likes me. Who does Jamie fancy, I wonder?" Lily asked.

"I reckon Jamie fancies Andrea." Remus offered. 

"And _I _reckon Jamie fancies Lily," Sirius grinned evilly. 

"No!" both parties protested.

"Yuck!" James continued. 

"You'll give me nightmares, Siri. Snape and James!"

"Are you saying I'm as bad as Snape, Lily?"

"Yes," Lily replied frankly. 

                The mounting tension was broken by the appearance of Rosmerta with their drinks. "Here y'are," she smiled.  "James, aren't you going to introduce me to your friends?"  

"Sure," James replied, still flustered from arguing with Lily.  "Er, this is Peter,"

"Hi."

"This is Remus."

"Nice to meet you."

"This is Sirius."

"Charmed."

"And Lily."

"Ignore James, he's an idiot. I'm very pleased to meet you."

                All four liked Rosmerta on sight, which was unusual considering their reactions to most of the girls they knew. They boys liked her for, well…obvious reasons, and Lily liked her for reasons she couldn't quite put her finger on yet. Most girls, now and in the future, would, upon meeting Sirius, James and Remus, completely ignore Lily. Lily didn't like this, not out of protectiveness for the boys, but simply because she disliked being pushed to the background. 

                Time passed quickly with easy chatter, even after Rosmerta joined them at their table. Lily joined with the boys in trying to impress her with tales of their exploits at the castle, and Rosmerta laughed so much when Lily turned Sirius into a duck and James retaliated by turning Lily into a hamster that she gave them a free drink.  James picked up the Lily hamster and dangled it before his face.

"Now we can give you to Snape and he'll have two of his dreams come true: a pet hamster and a pet Lily!" Remus and Peter roared with laughter, while the hamster thrashed furiously and finally bit James hand. James dropped her, and Remus took the opportunity to turn both the duck and the hamster back to their original forms. 

"Now you've all had your revenge," he said calmingly to his three glaring friends. "Calm down." They did, but still shot dirty looks at Peter and Rosmerta, who were laughing hysterically, and at Remus, whose mouth was quirking at the sides. Finally, they joined in the laughter themselves.

                It was about midnight when they decided it would be best to leave. They stood up, feeling slightly light-headed and disorientated from too much butterbeer and more than a little bit of mead, and walked to the tunnel on the hill. 

                Arriving back in the Gryffindor Common Room, footsore and weary, they were so tired that they flopped down in the comfy, warm armchairs. "Didn't we do this last Christmas?" James asked sleepily. 

"We do this a lot," Lily answered. 

They were answered only by Peter's snores. 

**************************

                On Christmas morning Sirius was awakened by the most delicious smell he could ever imagine. His dreams were suddenly filled with all sorts of food, but his stomach giving a particularly loud growl woke him up.  Frank stood in front of him, wafting a still warm and steaming piece of chocolate cake in front of his nose. Sirius made a successful grab for it and wolfed it down in one go. "Yummy," he said happily. 

"I thought that would work," Frank grinned. "Now get the other up; there's a rather interesting looking parcel on the dorm floor and I want to know what it is."

Sirius obligingly turned to find his friends. Cake in the morning made him happy. He saw Remus asleep in the chair opposite him, his head resting on James' shoulder. "Oh Re-mus!" he cooed loudly. 

"Piss of, Siri," Remus mumbled in return. 

"Presents," Sirius reminded him. 

"Oooh!" Remus sat up quickly. "Where?"

"Wake Lily up first."

Remus darted over to the chair next to Sirius' and shook Lily roughly. Lily cried out and threw out her fist, catching Remus hard around the face. "Ow!" Remus complained, as Sirius laughed. Lily was _not_ a morning person. 

                Eventually, however, she sat up. "What's wrong with your face, Re?" she asked sincerely. Remus humphed and stalked upstairs. "Presents, Lil, when you've woken Jamie," Sirius said, following Remus. 

                Hmmm, Lily mused, how does one wake a Jamie who doesn't want to be woken? You could kiss him, suggested a little voice in her head, immediately identifiable as a naughty little Sirius. I think not…

                Having come up with her idea, Lily walked over to James, and knelt so that their faces were level. She leant forwards, opened her mouth and…

"J AMES! Wake up!"

This time it was James' fist that flew out, but Lily was ready for it. She grabbed his hand and pulled him off the chair. He landed on his head and this was enough to wake even James. 

"Lily, what are you doing?" he moaned, rubbing his head. 

"Presents, Jamie, presents," Lily tutted. "Remember? Christmas?"

"Cool," James replied. He scrambled up and they ran together towards the boy's dormitory. Their arrival was the signal for Sirius, Remus and Peter to start unwrapping presents and the room was soon filled with exclamations of  "Cool!" "Oh my God!" and "Wow! The Martin Miggs Annual!" No one even thought to question why Lily's presents were in a pile on the floor, instead of on her own bed in her own room. 

                The very last present in Lily's pile was long and thin. The note on top said, 'Love Mum and Dad,' and underneath that, 'be VERY careful with this.'

"What's this?" she wondered aloud. Her friends took one look at it and knew immediately, but seeing that Lily really had no idea, they didn't say. (Even if that did mean that James had to put his hand over Sirius' mouth to stop him blurting it out.) They watched as Lily rapidly unwrapped it; as a shiny handle was revealed; then long, thin twigs. 

"Shit!" Lily said, sounding quite stunned, "it's a broom!"

"A Nimbus 1000," Remus added.

"Just like Jamie's," Sirius finished with a wicked grin on his face. 

"I'm going to fly it later," Lily said firmly. 

"Well of course," they answered, as if that was the most obvious thing in the world. 

"Is that it, then?" Sirius asked brightly. "Can we get breakfast now?"

"No, I've got one more present," James said. "Hey, listen to this: '_James, open this in private only. If you loose, get confiscated or otherwise harm this, I will personally kill you. Dad.' _Friendly, isn't it?" The others nodded. "Wait, there's more. '_I'm giving this to you because all your life, and even more this past year, you have proven you take after me more than your brothers. Keep up the Mischief Making, I hope this will help.'" _James looked confused.

"Well, open it then," Sirius persisted. James ripped the paper open and picked up what was inside. He held up a long, shining cloak, several times too big even for an adult, and not very warm looking. 

"What the hell is this?" he asked. The baffled faces of Lily, Sirius and Remus looked back at him. 

"Its – its – its and Invisibility Cloak."  Peter stuttered, obviously in shock that he knew something his friends didn't. 

"What?" James asked sharply.

"Try it and see," Peter said, more confidently. 

Feeling slightly silly, James wound the overlarge cloak around him. He could tell from the startled gasps of his friends that Peter had been right. He took the cloak off and looked at it in awe.

"Wow!"


	11. New Years

Chapter 11: The New Year's Party

                The days between Christmas and New Year's Eve passed in a blur of new toys, food and laughter, and annoyed exclamations from the more responsible Gryffindors who were trying to do previously forgotten homework. However, the forgotten homework of Sirius, James, Lily and Remus remained forgotten, though Peter could often be seen diligently working on his. It had snowed, deeply and thickly, on Boxing Day, and after James had transfigured a rickety table into a sled, they went sleighing on the hill just outside of Hogsmeade. 

                They awoke on New Years Eve to a dull, overcast day, with black clouds threatening, meaning that the afternoon's celebrations would be held entirely indoors. 

                Each year, Hogwarts held two New Year's Eve parties. The big event, on which all energies were focused, was the dance in the evening for 5th, 6th and 7th years, for which a band was hired, buffet food was laid on and which continued to one a.m., by which point most people had disappeared to more private areas. But earlier in the afternoon the younger students got their turn. A huge meal was set out, after which the tables were cleared away and games were played, prizes were given and even the oldest and most dignified of students usually managed to enjoy themselves. However, the last party had been the exception to this rule as five supposedly insignificant first years had created their own special brand of havoc in ways that were best forgotten, but had included several large spider-shaped creatures falling from the ceiling. Consequently, they were looking forward to making just as much, if not more, mischief this year, and with James' invisibility cloak, the possibilities were enormous.

                The party began at four o'clock, and by two, all the girls had disappeared to get ready. Lily personally couldn't see the point in this. "It'll take three minutes for me to get dressed and two to do my hair," she complained to the boys when Vicky called her. 

"Just promise me you'll come up at half three?" Vicky compromised. 

"Whatever," Lily agreed for the sake of peace, and returned to her plotting. 

                That was why, an hour and a half later, she disappeared up the stairs to her dormitory. The boys decided that this would be a good time for them to begin getting ready and left as well. 

"Why do I have to be here, Vicky? There's no point, I'm going in these clothes anyway. I'm not wearing my dress robes."

"Don't be silly, Lily. Anyway, we're going to do you up properly. There's four of us and one of you, so just shut it, ok?"

Lily growled, but obediently sat down on her bed. "Here, take these, and go and shower," she was told. 

"I showered this morning, that's enough for one day," Lily said firmly. 

"But you're covered in dirt. What _have_ you been doing, anyway?"

"We were playing hide-and-seek, and I found this hidden cupboard…"

"If you don't at least wash your face, I'll get Esmerelda Black to do it, and you know she will," Vicky grinned. Lily did indeed know that Esme would delight in anything that annoyed Lily; mainly due to the pranks Lily had played on her the year before. Growling yet again, Lily picked up the robes and went to wash. 

                She was most of the way back from the bathroom when she realised that the robes she was wearing were not hers. They were a bright royal blue, and while they were not her ideal colour, they most definitely did not look as bad as the dreaded pink ones.  

"Vicky, who's are these?" she cried, as she burst into the room. "Oh," she trailed off, "right." The sight that greeted Lily was Zoe in the pink robes, which looked stunning against her dark skin and hair. "You look lovely, Zoe," she finished lamely. 

"You don't look so bad-," Zoe began, but Andrea cut her off. 

"That's ok, Lily, Zoe doesn't mind you borrowing her robes at all. Anything for Golden Queen Lily."

Lily whirled around to face her. 'I've taken too much shit from Andrea,' she thought. "That is IT, Andrea. I've had enough.  I don't know why you don't like me, but as of now the feeling is completely neutral." With that, Lily hurled the 'Rhyming Couplets' curse at her. 

"Oh Lily, woe upon thee, 

That you have cast this curse on me," Andrea said. The other girls burst into laughter. 

"Laugh at me not,

For I will kill you like a shot."

This was too much, and the four girls lost control completely, rolling onto the floor laughing. 

"I'm going to leave that spell on you all night, just to teach you," Lily gasped out. Andrea opened her mouth to retort, but remembered in time and shut it with a snap. 

                When they had calmed down enough, Vicky made Lily sit on the floor while she artfully wound her hair up into a bun, leaving a few tendrils to curl around her face, then applied some make up. None of the girls, who were all immersed in preparing themselves, (or in Lily's case, staying awake), realised that it had turned four o'clock until the door slammed open revealing three grinning (and one blushing) boys. 

"AHH!" Vicky and Tabitha screamed. 

"AHH-LAA!" Andrea screamed. 

Zoe pulled the curtains shut around her bed.

"Why all the screaming?" James asked, bemused. "You're all dressed."

Lily grinned up at her friends, delighted that they had caused such a disturbance, one eye eerily rimmed with eyeliner. 

"This is the realm of the girl,

That is why we are in such a whirl," Andrea explained. 

"Pardon, Andy?" Sirius inquired, while the others stared in shock. 

"Your friend true,

Was feeling quite blue,

So she hexed me with this curse,

And now I feel rather worse."

It was ten minutes before the boys stopped laughing, and Vicky could fix Lily's eyes, so they were more than fashionably late. As they ran down the stairs, James pulled Lily back. "I've got it," he whispered, pulling his robes open to reveal the Invisibility Cloak.

"Excellent," Lily grinned, "I can't wait."

********************

They were nearly half an hour late, but they didn't mind; they ate dinner twice as quickly as most people anyway, and the other girls tended to eat less. When everyone had finished eating (and Sirius had spilled pasta sauce down his robes, which Remus spelled clean with a grin), the tables flew to the sides, and many new chairs appeared. Professor Dunworthy was in charge of the party this year, assisted by Professor Headley, which amused the students, as they were not talking to each other. Since the incident at the end of the school year that had seen Sirius beaten up and his friends nearly expelled, the two Professors had barely exchanged a civil word. 

"Musical chairs, everyone," Dunworthy called. "Prize for the winner." General applause greeted his announcements, especially the second one. Everyone who wanted to play lined up in a circle, and a chair quickly matched itself to each person before one was taken away. Music started over the Magical Megaphones and the game began. 

                Magical Musical Chairs was not the same as Muggle Musical Chairs. IT followed the same basic principle, but the participants ran around the perimeter of the game area and there was one major difference: the chairs moved. When the game stopped, each person had to chase a still-moving chair. Unsurprisingly, the game often turned violent. 

All five managed to stay in for the first few rounds, but then disaster struck as Lily and James ran for the same chair. There was a brief physical fight, and the whole hall laughed as James ended up on his rear end on the floor and Lily got the chair.  "Haha, Jamie, beaten up by a girlie," Sirius crowed, earning glares from both parties. Lily was not just an ordinary 'girlie'. James stalked out of the hall, apparently sulking. 

                Peter lost in the next round, and that was when it began to happen. Chairs began to disappear from under people. As someone sat down, the chair would move into the path of another.  When this happened to Malfoy and then Snape in succession, Lily and Remus laughed so much that it made them loose concentration, and they soon lost, leaving just Sirius with third and fourth years. Sirius winked at them; he was enjoying himself thoroughly. 

                Sirius first beat a Hufflepuff fourth year to a chair, literally sliding under him so that the boy ended up on his lap. He then beat a Slytherin girl in a sprint to the final chair, and moved a chair from underneath a third year himself, meaning that it was just himself and Robert Carrick, a tall, burly Ravenclaw Beater, left in it.

                The last chair was squarely in the middle of the hall, dancing happily. The two boys were running at opposite sides of the hall. When the music stopped, both legged it towards the chair, which began to move away from them both. As they were running, Carrick reached out to push Sirius over, and Sirius fell flat, but grabbed the other boy's ankle so that he too fell. They both scrambled up and raced neck-and-neck for the errant chair. As they reached it, Carrick whipped out his wand and yelled "Accio!" and the chair flew straight towards him. This didn't stop Sirius from launching himself at Carrick, and knocking him over, but the older boy rolled and fell onto the chair, technically making himself the winner. 

"CHEAT! Cheat!" The Gryffindors in the crowd were screaming, Lily and Remus among the most vocal. 

"Bastard!" Peter squeaked. 

"I'm afraid that's cheating, Mr Carrick," Professor Dunworthy said. 

"No one ever said 'No magic'," Carrick contested, and Dunworthy had to agree. It was just something that had been taken for granted; no one had ever thought to tell the students. 

                As Sirius finally walked towards him, Remus said quietly, but gloatingly, "I would have beaten him."

Sirius glared, "Shut up you, with your super-human strength. Why is that, anyway?"

Remus visibly closed up and Sirius wondered why. "Nothing," Remus answered. 

                The games continued, with Musical Bumps, Musical Statues, and a Dancing Competition, which Sirius won outright. Another Gryffindor won Musical Statues (though both Sirius and Lily lost in the first round) and a Ravenclaw won Musical Bumps, making the scores equal. All over the hall Slytherins were provoking fights between Ravenclaws and Gryffindors, whose shouts of "Cheaters! Cheaters!" rang on the air, and the Hufflepuffs were desperately trying to stop the violence. The last game to be played was an old Muggle favourite, Musical Laps. This time the chairs, (with all the boys seated on them) were stationary, and the girls were running. Not surprisingly, Sirius, James and Remus had made sure they were near the middle of the lines, so they would _have_ to play for as long as possible.   

                As Lily ran in time with the music, she watched the other participants. The boys were watching the girls that ran by them, hoping someone they liked would end up on their lap, and the girls were doing likewise. As the music stopped, and Lily sat down (on a rather ugly Slytherin) she heard boys crying "Over here!" to girlfriends, and girls fighting over who got to sit on a particularly good-looking boy. Much of the latter controversy seemed to be around Simon Cleavy, the third year star of the Ravenclaw Quidditch team, who had beaten James to the spot right in the middle of the line. 'Silly twits', Lily thought at the two currently arguing girls. 'It will last for all of two minutes.'

                However, the matter wasn't quite so simple. The two girls were a Ravenclaw and a Gryffindor, and when the Gryffindor girl, Aline, decided that words were getting her nowhere, she punched the Ravenclaw girl and took her seat. The resulting argument was barely restrained from becoming a riot, and James didn't help matters by reaching over to pat Aline on the back and publicly congratulate her. The game resumed, but the air was filled with an electric tension. 

                Lily began to run again, but when the music stopped, she was at the end. She ran quickly to find an empty seat, and heard Sirius call out "Over here Lils!" Running towards his voice, she saw that there was one space left and it was James. Simon Cleavy was next to him, with Andrea on his lap. "Yuck," Lily groaned aloud. "I am not sitting on James! Andy, swap places with me!"

                Andrea, who had kept her mouth shut for the entire night, forgot her problem and began to insult Lily. 

"For a bitch like you,

I would not move if I had flu!"

This had the opposite effect; everyone around her began to laugh, including Cleavy. 

"You are not just a whore, 

You are also a bore!" Andy shrieked. 

Andrea's hatred of Lily entered new dimensions, because she was half in love with Simon Cleavy. 

                Giving it up as a lost cause, Lily went to sit on James, but he pushed her off. "I don't want you to sit on me," he snapped. 

"Better me than a Ravenclaw bitch," Lily said, glancing at the girls who were still looking for places, and sat down. The Ravenclaws around her glared, and began to mutter to each other. 

                In the next round, Lily found herself seated next to Sirius, on a handsome, if brainless, Hufflepuff named Gilderoy Lockhart. "Why, hello!" Lockhart had purred as she sat down. Lily had silenced him with a glare. A rather large Ravenclaw ran up and sat on Sirius, and Sirius cried out, thoughtlessly, "Ow! Get off my legs, you bloody heifer!" 

                There was immediate uproar. Robert Carrick, sitting behind Sirius, turned and punched him square on the nose. Sirius replied in kind, and within seconds the Hufflepuffs and Slytherins had scrambled out of the way as the other two houses engaged in trying to kill each other. 

                Lily found herself facing the Ravenclaw Sirius had been rude about. She dodged as the girl threw a punch at her, and then threw one of her own. She was only vaguely aware of Professor Dunworthy shouting. James was fighting Simon Cleavy, and Lydia Matthews, the Gryffindor Quidditch Captain, was facing off against two second years. There was no sign of Remus, but from shouts of "Ow, Lupin! You bastard!" Lily assumed that he was doing some serious damage. 

                Several loud bangs went off and suddenly the fighting stopped. Dunworthy was glaring at the hall. "I will overlook this as you all being over excited, but if there is any more violence here tonight, then everybody here, I repeat everybody present, will have a months worth of detention. Now if anybody's hurt, they should go to the Hospital Wing."

                There were loud groans from the Hufflepuffs and the Slytherins, and Dunworthy turned to shout at them. "Don't think I haven't seen you stirring fights all around the hall tonight!" he yelled suddenly. This was so unfair t the peace-promoting Hufflepuffs, and he looked so fierce, that a tiny Hufflepuff first year burst into noisy tears. Dunworthy at least had the grace to apologise. "I'm sorry," he said, "I didn't mean the Hufflepuffs. I've actually seen you trying to stop fights." The Hufflepuffs continued to glare at him. "I really am sorry. Fifty points to Hufflepuff." The Hufflepuffs beamed. This put them ahead in the House Championships for probably the first time ever. 

                The music started again for the last hour and a half of the party. The games were finished, and this time was for dancing. Sirius was just pulling a protesting Lily onto the dance floor when James tapped them both on the shoulder. "Do you want to do something really cool?" he asked them. 

"Ok," Lily agreed immediately. She followed him out of the hall, much to her relief, for she had not wanted to dance. Sirius followed them reluctantly. 

                Remus and Peter were already outside the hall piling up snowballs. "What's this for?" Sirius asked grumpily. 

"We can bring these under my cloak, and two of us stand under my it and throw them at people. The rest of us are out in the crowd, so that we have alibis." 

"And just how are we going to keep them frozen, Mr Good Ideas?" Sirius asked bitingly. 

"A firm-a-freeze charm, you moron," James replied. 

"And _what_ exactly is that?"

"Something I just mad up," Remus answered. 

"Ooh, look at Mr. Clever," Sirius sniped. 

"Siri, stop being so damn grumpy. It's a great idea. Can I go first?" Lily asked. 

"No, me and Remus are, it was our idea," James replied. 

Lily pouted at him. "Change quickly, ok?" she said.

James took the cloak from where he had hidden it and he and Remus piled themselves up with as many permanently frozen snowballs as they could carry. Because they were permanently frozen, they could be carried everywhere.  Lily and Sirius made a few more snowballs, and then went back inside with Peter to act as alibis. 

                The most comic scene imaginable hit them as they walked in. All across the hall people were shrieking as cold, wet snow hit them. Apparently, the boys were taking their firm-a-freeze charms off the snowballs before they threw them., because several people looked decidedly wet. As they watched, a snowball thrown with true chaser's aim hit Simon Cleavy on the forehead. "Nice one, Jamie," Sirius muttered. By now, people were beginning to look around for the source, and Lily and Sirius felt a breeze brush past them with a faint whisper of "Your turn." 

                Meanwhile, both Professors that were in charge of the event had noticed the flying snowballs. "What is that?" Professor Dunworthy muttered to himself. Professor Headley, standing next to him, snapped, "How should I know?"

"I wasn't talking to you," Dunworthy replied coldly. "Anyway, it must be someone, I just can't work out who."

"What about your bratty second years?"

"Can't be," Dunworthy replied shortly. "There's Evans and Black, and I'm sure I saw Lupin and Potter just now." A few seconds passed, in which James and Remus re-entered the room. "See, there they are. It can't possibly be them."

Headley looked sceptical. "I'm sure they could find a way," she said bitingly. The two Professors glared at each other and turned around, walking off in opposite directions.  Suddenly, with perfect timing, snowballs hit them both on the back of the head simultaneously. They both spun around, each thinking that the other had thrown the snowball, and showed their maturity by making rude finger gestures at each other.

Minutes later, a fight broke out on the other side of the Hall. Apparently, the same thing had happened to Snape and Malfoy. Snape looked even greasier than normal with his wet hair and face, and there was a large, spreading purple stain on Malfoy's immaculate robes.

"Boys, no more play fighting or you'll get detention!" Headley shouted.

"Detention!" Dunworthy yelled.

"You do not have detention!" Headley argued.

"I'll expect to see you in my office first thing tomorrow morning."

"They do NOT have detention!" Headley shrieked.

"Well I say they DO!"

"I'm their House Master and they DON'T!"

"Fighting is against the school rules and I'm the Deputy Head!"  Dunworthy concluded with finality. Someone in the watching crowd wolf-whistled (someone conveniently hidden by an Invisibility Cloak) and the Gryffindors burst out laughing. Under the cloak, Lily and Sirius had to sit down, because their legs were weak from laughter, and James, Remus and Peter had also sank to they floor.

With bad grace, Professor Headley shouted, "This party is OVER!"


	12. One Win, One Loss

Chapter 12: One Win, One Loss

Disclaimer:  nothing that you recognise belongs to me. It all belongs to J.K. Rowling, long may she live and write, and I honestly want nothing from this except a reader. 

                The aftermath of the New Year's Eve Party was brief, but violent. Fights broke out constantly in the corridors for weeks afterwards, and Professor Headley was even meaner than usual to her Gryffindor students. It didn't last long, though, and after Christmas time seemed to fly by. The teachers began to talk about the exams and about which subjects the second years wanted to start next year. There were loud groans at these pronouncements; nobody wanted to think about exams and important decisions in February. The middle of the month saw a Hogsmeade outing for all the older students, leaving the younger ones with the castle to themselves. Lily and James decided they wanted to look for more secret passages and rooms, and when they decided something, it usually happened. A new passage was found behind a statue of Gregory the Smarmy, a wizard who looked rather like Snape when he was talking to Professor Headley or Lucius Malfoy. It led not to Hogsmeade, but through a dungeon, which showed that evidence that Filch's constant claims that students in previous centuries had been tortured as punishment were true, and right out to the grounds at the other side of the school. It looked like it would be a valuable escape route.

                The only other notable even in February was the argument James got into with Professor Malfoy, in one of their Defence Against the Dark Arts lessons. It was not unusual for one of them to get into a fight with a teacher, which happened all too often; what was unusual was that James won. 

                It had all started at the beginning of the lesson. Professor Malfoy had pushed James out of the way to get into the classroom, shouting "Out of my way, Potter!" where a simple 'Excuse me' would have sufficed. James had had to be physically restrained from pushing him back. The Professor was only very young, 23 at most, and very weedy; it was common school opinion that one of a number of Gryffindors could have taken him in a physical fight. A magical duel was another matter all together; he was a Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, and a Malfoy and consequently knew a lot of Dark Magic. 

                He began the class with a biting assessment of certain Gryffindors' homework, and when the five looked at their marks. They discovered that not one of them had gotten more than a three out of a possible ten. Since this was a piece of work they had actually bothered to take some time over and were quite proud of (even if it had been a week late), they were naturally upset over the marks. Remus was the most upset, because Defence Against the Dark Arts was his best and favourite subject, despite the teacher. 

                After listening for ten minutes to Professor Malfoy giving details of what should have been in their answers, they concluded that they had almost all the correct information, and James put up his hand. 

                "Excuse me, Professor," he said tightly. "Could you tell us exactly what is wrong with our homework?" 

The teacher looked towards him with the famous Malfoy sneer on his face. "You did not have the correct information," he said coldly, and turned back. 

"We all have everything you just said!" James contested. 

"If I say you do not, you do not. Is that clear, Potter?" the Professor asked quietly. 

"No, its not clear," James said, just as quietly. "It'll become clear when you tell us juts exactly what is wrong with our work."

"10 points from Gryffindor, Potter."

"So you cant back yourself up?"

"20 points," Malfoy said, with a slight note of panic in his voice. 

"Cant even defend yourself, can you sir?" James said mockingly. 

"SHUT UP, POTTER!" the class gasped and James laughed. 

"Don't make a very good Slytherin, do you? You don't even have the force to carry your convictions."

"That's it, Potter, Dumbledore's office, now." Professor Malfoy grabbed James' robes by the neck and hauled him bodily out of the classroom. "And if any of you move from your seats, I'll see you personally expelled," he yelled, before slamming the door shut. 

                Of course, Sirius, Lily and Remus were out of their seats in seconds, clutching the offending pieces of work, and they followed them to Dumbledore's office, and then snuck up the stairs after them.  

                 When they got there, a huge row was already taking place inside. "Yes, Professor, what's wrong?" Dumbledore had asked when they first arrived. 

"This boy!" Malfoy fumed. "He is rude and insubordinate!"

"What exactly happened?" Dumbledore asked patiently. 

"Potter! First he dared to question the marks I gave his disgraceful piece of homework, and then he was consistently rude to me!"

"You forgot to mention the fact that you pushed me out of the way to get into the room when I wasn't even in the way, and then literally _pulled_ me up here," James snapped. "And you were rude to me first. Besides that, you blatantly marked our homework wrong."

"'Our'?" Dumbledore inquired.

"Our," James confirmed. 

"That's one of the reasons why I gave them a bad mark. They all copied from each other," Malfoy said, seeing an opportunity. 

"Of course all our work is the same, we all have the same text book!" James said indignantly.

"That seems reasonable," Dumbledore said.

"And their work was over a week late."

"That's got nothing to do with the mark you gave us!" James exclaimed.

"Mr Potter has a point, Professor Malfoy. If you are unhappy with the punctuality of work, house points should be deducted. It has nothing to do with the mark given."

"I still object to the questioning of my marks!"

"They were _wrong!_" 

"I think there is a simple way to sort this out. Mr Potter, if you could go and fetch your work -,"

"We have it!" Lily yelled, as the three outside tumbled through the door. 

"I should have known you would be outside," Dumbledore said, his eyes blue eyes twinkling. 

"See!" Malfoy shouted. "Rule breaking behaviour again!"

"We were only trying to be helpful," Sirius said, pouting. 

"May I see the work, Miss Evans?"

"Certainly, Professor Dumbledore!" Lily beamed. 

"I understand the work is about Kappa's, Professor?" Dumbledore asked, before reading the work. When he had finished, he asked the four students to wait at the bottom of the stairs. 

                Once they had gone, he turned to the other Professor, saying, "I have to understand why they were so angry about this work. It is near perfect, and Lupin's easily deserves to have full marks." Professor Malfoy glared at him. "I'm afraid you will have to re-evaluate their marks. Or I could ask one of the other Professors to do it for you?" 

"I'll do it myself," Malfoy said sullenly.

"It was a foolish mistake to make, Professor Malfoy," Dumbledore said seriously. "They are not the kind of students who would not challenge you about it. I'm afraid I'll have to make this an official reprimand." 

"Yes, Headmaster," Malfoy said quietly. 

"Now, if you would kindly send the children back up?" It was a clear dismissal and Malfoy knew it. He left with a tic going over his left eye. 

                When Dumbledore saw the four second years, he merely said that their work was being remarked, and that James should try to be less rude to teachers in future, even when provoked. He also added that much as he enjoyed seeing the others in his office, he would prefer if they waited for an invite in the future. A few days later, they got their new marks. Peter had gone from 1 to 7; James and Sirius had risen to 8, and Lily to 9. Remus now had perfect marks, even though he had received only 3 to begin with. They were delighted. But now there were two Malfoys with a grudge against them; and two Professors. 

**************************

                They had put it off as long as possible, but time had eventually caught up with them. It was the beginning of March, and time for five unpunctual Gryffindors to make their decisions about what they would study next year. Having been pressured about it by Professor Dunworthy for over a week, they decided to discuss their options in a History of Magic class. Or rather, Sirius, Lily, Remus and James did; Peter was unique in perhaps the whole history of Hogwarts: he liked History of Magic and was diligently working through it. It was also one of the few school subjects he was good at. 

"Well," James whispered to his friends, who were huddled around him, " I say we pick Care of Magical Creatures and Divination."

"Oh Lord no!" Sirius exclaimed at bit too loudly; several students turned around to look at him. "Orion warned me against Divination; he says its bloody useless and the teachers a crackpot, and that if I took it he'd find a way of locking me in there with her."

"Ok, so not Divination. What about Muggle Studies?" asked Remus.

"You don't need to do that, you've got me. I'm a Muggle-born," Lily said irritably. 

"Well what about Arithmancy?" asked ever-patient Remus. 

"That sounds too difficult, and like a lot of hard work," Sirius moaned. 

"Oh shut up, you lazy bugger. I'm for Arithmancy," James declared. 

"Me too," confirmed Remus and Lily. 

Sirius glared at them. "I suppose if it's a group decision, I have no bloody choice," he muttered, turning around in his chair. The others sighed and rolled their eyes at each other. Sirius was going into one of his moods again.

"Sirius Black, are you sulking again?" Lily asked sternly. She said it too loudly, and although the Professor didn't notice, the rest of the class did, and they swivelled around to look at her. Even Professor Binns, famous for never noticing anything, could hardly fail to notice the simultaneous movement of most of his class, and he peered owlishly at Lily. "Miss –er – Miss – whatever, were you talking in my lesson?"

"She's not called Miss Whatever," James piped up, unmindful of Dumbledore's warnings about being rude to teachers.

"She's called Miss Evans," Remus said. 

"Miss Lily Evans, and don't she look just like a flower?" Sirius added, not wanting to miss the fun. 

"And I can also talk for myself," Lily snapped, and then put on her most innocent look. "I can assure you, Professor, that I would never dream of talking in your lessons."

"And you'd never, ever, dream of breaking any rules," James added sweetly. 

"Oh shut up, Potter. You think you're so bloody clever."

"And you, Lily, have a head the size of Asia."

"Well its nothing compared to yours, Mr I'm–so–bloody–brilliant–at–Quidditch."     

"You're just jealous you didn't make the team!"

"Children, children," Binns protested in effectually, his pale arms flapping like a windmill. 

"Take that back, Potter, or you'll be in serious pain."

"Oh, _Evans_, I'm actually shaking with fear."

"If you don't take it back, I'm going to rip your eyes out with my little fingers."]

"And how would you do that? You're a weakling!"

                There were shrieks from all of the Hufflepuff students and most of the Gryffindors as well, as Lily shoved the table out of the way and went after James. The only Gryffindors who weren't shrieking were Sirius and Remus, who were laughing hysterically. Lily chased James all the way around the classroom, causing even more yells, before backing him into a corner. She stood in front of him, so that they were eye to eye, with their shoulders heaving and their breaths coming in gasps. 

                The class, including Professor Binns, (who's protests had stopped when he realised no one was listening) were watching them on tenterhooks, utterly silent. Lily and James continued to stare at each other intently, then suddenly their mouths twitched and they too were laughing, slapping each other on the back and congratulating themselves on the argument. 

                The class looked baffled, and Professor Binns looked like he was going to use this time to hand out punishments. Luckily, the lesson ended then and everybody exited the room before he had time to give detentions.

**********************

                A week later, the five friends were walking to the same lesson again. They passed a group of Slytherins in the corridor, and both groups sniggered at each other and traded dirty looks. The Slytherin – Gryffindor Quidditch match was approaching and this was nothing unusual.  But Snape was in that group of Slytherins and he deliberately bumped into Lily, hard. She stumbled and glared at him, and he muttered "Filthy Mudblood," before walking off. 

                Lily felt puzzled. No one had ever told her what Mudblood meant. "Hang on," she called, "Snape, come here." He came back with his usual entourage of Nott and Lestrange. She could see the other Slytherin boys looking on from further ahead. "Yes, Evans? What can I do for the little Mudblood?" Snape asked sarcastically. 

"That," Lily said firmly. "Why do you keep calling me a Mudblood?" 

"Because you are one. A filthy, dirty, disgusting Mudblood," Snape said simply. Lily glared at him; she knew enough to know that the word was an insult, and decided to ask one of her friends. Remus was the best bet, she decided, because he could explain things well and keep his temper. But things were already out of her control because Sirius had heard what Snape said to her, and it was taking both Remus and James to restrain him. 

                Seeing this, Lily decided to get rid of Snape. "Thank you for that," she said coldly, "It clarified so much."

"Anything for you, Miss Evans," he bowed sarcastically, "Just don't touch me." Hearing this last remark, Sirius began to struggle even harder and James and Remus had to throw him into the History of Magic classroom before Lily slammed the door behind her. 

"What is all this about?" she fumed. "What the hell does Mudblood mean? Why does it make Sirius so upset?" 

"It means anyone Muggle-born isn't as good as pure-bloods like the Malfoys and the Snapes. It means that you've got, say, _dirty_, blood. Some wizards look down on Muggles, so if you have Muggle blood you're obviously not as good," Remus explained. "It's a stupid attitude, and it makes us all mad, not just Sirius."

"I know why that bastard calls you a Mudblood," Sirius growled. "Its 'cos he knows he'll never be as good a wizard as you are, so he has to get you in some other way."  As he was talking, Professor Binns arrived through the blackboard, but none of them noticed. 

"Well, that's obvious, Sirius," James said angrily. "But next time you're going to have to say that, not punch him."

"Why don't you say it, and I'll punch him, and then we'll have the best of both worlds?" 

"No, that wouldn't work, I was planning on cursing him while you were saying it," James disagreed. "Remus'll have to say it."

"And what do I get to do?" Lily asked, furious because they were being so over-protective of her. 

"Burst into tears?" James suggested.

"Stand there and look pretty?" was Sirius' idea.

"Punch James or Sirius for being so sexist?" Remus grinned.

"I like Re's best," Lily decided.

"Class! Class!" Professor Binns shouted.

"So how come you never told me what it meant?" Lily asked.

"You never asked," Sirius replied.

"I've been called it enough times, you could have explained it then."

"But in a way, we like you being insulted, Lils, as long as its something we agree with. Like big shit-head."

"OY!" Lily yelled.

"Class!" Professor Binns yelled. "This is the last time I'm going to ask you: be quiet!"

"James Potter, you're just as bad as Snape!" Lily said, using the worst insult she could think of. "No, wait. You're worse."

"Hey, that's not fair!" James cried.

"You deserve it." Lily said. 

"That is IT!" Professor Binns thundered. "I have had _enough_ of this class. You are the worst students I have ever had to teach. I've had enough. Goodbye." With that, Binns floated back through the blackboard.

                There was a hushed silence. Professor Binns never got angry with a class, and he never ever shouted. "Wow!" Sirius breathed. "That was amazing."

"Yeah, he got you to shut up," James snapped, still annoyed. 

"Lets go," Remus said, trying to avoid another argument. They left the classroom knowing that as soon as Dunworthy, or even worse, Dumbledore, got to hear of this, they would be in serious trouble.

***********************

                It was a further week later and they were back in History of Magic. Professor Dunworthy stood in front of the class, glaring at them. "Your behaviour as a class over the past few weeks has been unacceptable. Professor Binns very kindly agreed to give you one last chance to continue learning History of Magic. You will behave yourselves." He now glared directly at Lily, James and Sirius. "If you do not, the class will be split up, and you will each individually be sat in lessons with other teachers. You will have to pass your O.W.L.'s on your own. Is that understood?"

"Yes sir," the class muttered.

"Professor Binns, you have the full backing of both myself and the Headmaster to take whatever action you think is necessary to control this class."

'Uh-oh,' thought Remus. 'That does not sound good.'

                For the first half an hour, the lesson went well. Professor Binns droned on about the Wizard Convention of 1729 in which all magical wooden fireplaces were banned in England, because the attracted too much Muggle attention, and the class listened in quiet boredom. Then, predictably, Sirius decided he wanted to do something. He wadded up a piece of paper and enchanted it so that it would bang into the head of everyone in the room. He threw it and the paper bounced on its way, leaving a wake of disgruntled faces behind it. 

                As was very often the case, Sirius had not thought his plan through. This was what Remus' were for, after all. He watched in horrified fascination as the paper hit the last student and went after Professor Binns. As he was a ghost, the paper went right through him, and this seemed to annoy it. It swung back for another attack, and again went through the Professor's head. This completely enraged it, and the paper sped up, attacking the ghost from all sides. Binns tried to fend the annoying piece of paper off, but it went right through his hands, and the class were soon laughing happily at the unfortunate ghost. 

                Professor Binns soon had the presence of mind to pick up his wand and undo the enchantment, and then he turned to glare at his class, who gulped. With one of his hands, the entire class found themselves leg-locked magically. "I have told you that I have had enough of your tricks. This time it is my turn." Binns waved his hands again and green slime poured from the ceiling onto the screaming students. Through all this noise, Binns could still hear the sound of laughter, coming from the four Gryffindors who had started it all.

"Quiet!" he yelled suddenly. "The whole class will write a report on an important pre-Medieval magical figure, and Merlin does _not_ count. It must be at least 10 rolls of parchment long. And in case you are thinking of not handing it

in, Professor Dunworthy will be responsible for collecting them." The class groaned as Binns turned to glare directly at Sirius, Lily, James and Remus. "As for you four, you will not leave this room until it is spotless. And no magic." 

"But we've got lessons now!" they protested. 

"You will have to catch up later."

"But – but…" they protested ineffectually. 

"We will now continue with the lesson," Binns said firmly, "Whether you are covered in slime or not."

******************

"This is all your fault, Sirius," Lily moaned, two hours later, during lunch. They were trying to clean the classroom, although they had had little luck so far. Only a tiny corner of the large, slime-covered room was clean. To make matters worse, Peter was not talking to them, as they had disrupted his favourite lesson, and he had refused to bring them any lunch, so hunger was added to their list of woes.

"This is the worst detention ever!" Remus said. 

"No, The Slytherin-beater one was worse," Sirius countered. 

"At least with that we weren't there for a whole day, and it looks like we'll be here longer for this one," Lily said.

"At least with that one we didn't have to _clean!_" James said.

"Just because you've never done any housework in your life, you spoilt brat," Lily began, and they started to bicker.

******************

                At 11.41pm that night, loud screams could be heard coming from the History of Magic classroom. "We did it! We did it!" they shrieked.

"It's clean!"

"Finally!"

"Oh, shut up, Potter, if you'd helped more we'd have been done ages ago!"

"I did just as much as you, Evans. Wait, where have Remus and Sirius gone?"

*****************

                "Oh, I was _so_ hungry!" Sirius said. 

"I just love house elves," Remus replied. "Doughnuts and pumpkin juice at this time of night!"

"Do you reckon James and Lils are still arguing?"

"Well, they've been arguing all day, so I don't see any reason why they would've stopped now."

                The two exhausted boys laughed and made their way up to Gryffindor Tower, and bed. Needless to say, a very irate James and a very angry Lily arrived some time later, hungry and still arguing. 


	13. The Mystery Of Remus

Chapter 13: the Mystery Of Remus

Disclaimer: this does not belong to me, it belongs to J. K. Rowling, and I'm just playing with her toys.

Dedication: to Lili, who will hopefully never find this, because I think she would be quite frightened. But if you do find it, Lili, it was your birthday yesterday, and I wanted to say 'ta for bein a great mate!'

                It was the 29th of March, Remus' birthday, and of course his four friends had planned a party for that night. A private one, this time; they still remembered the disaster of Peter's birthday. They were more organised this now as well, because they already had all the non-perishable food stored up in Kirrin. They were currently raped in the common room, admiring themselves and their foresight, when Remus rushed in. 

"Oh my god," he panted, clutching his sides. "It's my mum, she's been taken ill again. I have to go right away!"

His friends looked at him with concern, and to be honest, a bit of selfish disappointment that their work had been for nothing. 

"Of course, Re," Lily exclaimed, pushing the selfish feeling aside. "Do you want help packing?"

"No, no, I'm fine," Remus replied, looking rather worried at that.

"We'll help if you want," James insisted. 

"It's horrid that it had to be your birthday!" Sirius said.

"I hope she's ok," Lily said softly. 

"Thanks," Remus called back over his shoulder, having already disappeared up the dormitory stairs. 

"Poor Re," Lily said, shaking her head.

"He seems to have an awful lot of family problems," Peter said.

"His mum's been sick as long as I can remember," James explained sadly. 

"Yeah, but who was it last month? His uncle?  And before that, it was a funeral, or something, am I right? And in December it was his mother. Every month it seems something happens to Re's family and he's called away," Sirius concluded miserably. He hated to see Remus upset, they all did, and Remus seemed to return from these trips exhausted in both body and spirit.  'Every month, poor Re,' Sirius thought. 'Every month.' There was something vaguely familiar about that, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. So, being Sirius, he ignored it and began to think of something else. Namely Lydia Matthews. 

                Eventually, he became aware of Lily and James sniggering at him.

"What?" he snapped, annoyed that they had interrupted his daydreaming. 

"You had that look on your face…" James said dreamily.  

"The one you get when you're thinking of Lydia naked," Lily added. They both burst into laughter again, and Sirius blushed. "I was _not_ thinking of that," he said defensively. 

"So your intentions are purely noble, are they Siri?" James grinned.

Sirius went even redder. So what if he liked how Lydia looked? He was a teenage boy, wasn't he? Or at least he was _almost_ a teenage boy.

                Luckily for him, Remus chose this moment to down the stairs with his bag. "See you guys," he said sadly. 

"Bye, Remus!" they chorused. 

"We were just teasing Sirius about Lydia. He was thinking about her naked," James laughed, in the hope of cheering Remus up. 

Remus managed a weak grin and said "Keep your hormones under control, Siri, she's your brother's girlfriend." Needless to say, Remus glared at him. "Bye, all."

"Hope your mum gets better," Peter said. 

"Give her our love," Lily added. 

*****************

                There was a thunderstorm that night. Asleep in her own bed, in her own dormitory for once, Lily woke suddenly. At first she could not work out what had woken her, but then she remembered James. With a sigh she got out of bed and pulled on her slippers, careful not to wake any of the other girls, and left the room. She might not always get along with James, but he was still her friend and she hated seeing him in pain not caused by herself, so she quietly made her way to the boy's dormitory. 

                 In the common room, two profiles were visible in front of the fire, immediately identifiable as Orion and Lydia. They had their arms wrapped around each other, and exchanged kissed every so often. Lily thought of Sirius and grimaced. 

                She crept up the stairs and entered the room. Nothing was immediately out of place; there were no sounds, and nobody seemed to be awake. But when she listened properly, she could hear the soft, barely audible sound of James crying. Hearing this, Lily heaved a great sigh and went over to his bed. "Jamie?" she said softly, pushing back the covers. Her friend was huddled up under the covers with a pillow over his head, trying to muffle the sound of his crying. "Budge up," Lily said, climbing into the bed beside him. 

******************

                It was a few hours later, and Lily was awake again. The moon had set and the sky was much lighter. Lily couldn't sleep and she needed desperately to move. It might only be six am, but she had the strangest urge to jump up and down. As the minutes ticked by, it became obvious she wasn't going to get back to sleep, so she untangled herself from the still sleeping James and bounded out of bed. Feeling she might as well do the thing properly, she bounced all around the room and ended up in front of the window. The weather was so much better than the night before, and Lily opened the window to breathe in the morning air (and to annoy her friends, who would not want to be woken up). 

                Suddenly she caught sight of a figure walking slowly from beyond Hagrid's hut. She looked again, unsure why anyone would be up and out at that time in the morning. The figure was vaguely visible, and Lily watched as they came into view. She couldn't believe her eyes, and continued to stare. There was no way on earth it was Remus. Remus was in Wales, visiting his mother. But there was no way she could mistake him for someone else either. 

                Remus was walking through the school grounds alone at six am in the morning.

********************

                Lily called a group conference in the dormitory that morning. It turned out to be quite late in the morning because Sirius and James had proven impossible to wake. Eventually they were all washed, dressed and fed (a necessary requirement when Sirius was involved). Frank had been kicked out and they had the room to themselves, but even so Lily was taking no chances: they were all huddled on Remus' bed, which was the farthest away from the door. 

"So?" asked James. "What's all this fuss about?" He was clearly still irritated from being woken up. 

"You can help me actually, James. Remus has gone to see his mother cos she's sick, right?" Lily asked. James nodded. "Hasn't this always been the case?"

"Well, yeah, every couple of months or so," James replied, utterly baffled at the line of conversation. 

"And this would mean he wouldn't be on school grounds?"

"Of course!" they all replied, with annoyance. 

"But he was," Lily stated. This simple statement caused uproar. 

"Of course, Lily. And you love Snape," Sirius said patronizingly. 

James and Peter exchanged startled looks, and then James tapped his own head significantly in a gesture that said he thought Lily was mad. Peter looked pleased that someone else was behaving like an idiot for once instead of him. 

"Shut up," Lily said sharply. "He was here, I definitely saw him. Walking across the grounds at six o'clock this morning. Alone."

"But Lily, Remus-is-in-Wales," James said, as though he was talking to a very small child.

"No," Lily said with finality. "He's here." 

"That is just so much bullshit, Lils, and you know it. You must have been mistaken," said Sirius. 

"Sirius Black, Remus is one of my best friends!" Lily shrieked. "I am _not_ going to mistake him for someone else!" Lily sounded slightly hysterical, and her friends looked worried. 

"Ok, lets just say, hypothetically-," began Sirius.

"Ooh! Big words!" James interrupted. 

"This is serious, James," Lily scolded. 

"No, I am." Sirius quipped, then continued. "If Remus _is_ in school, why? And why would he lie to us? It's just not possible, Lils, Remus wouldn't lie to us."

"Well, I saw him. Therefore he must have a really good reason for lying to us. He'd _better_ have a really good reason for lying to us," Lily almost growled. 

"I just can't think why he would," Sirius said, looking hurt. 

"Lets look at the facts," James said in a matter-of-fact voice. "Remus goes away apparently, but really stays at school. Therefore we can assume that this is the case every time, which is about once a month. So what can possibly cause him to do that?" By now, James also sounded hurt. He had known Remus since they were small children, and it now seemed as if Remus had been lying to him all that time.  He wanted to know why. 

"Well it has to be something really bad, because obviously the teachers play along with it," Sirius said, biting his lower lip. 

"And his parents must know," Lily added. 

"Once a month," James mused. "That's oddly familiar."

                Suddenly, Sirius clapped a hand to his mouth. He had gone pale underneath his dark skin, and his eyes were wide with shock. "Shit!" he whispered. 

"What?" the others immediately demanded. 

"Lily," Sirius said, turning to her.  "What moon was it last night?" He stared deep into her eyes, and it suddenly clicked with both her and James. 

"Oh my god," James muttered, while Lily froze in shock. 

"What?" Peter insisted again.

"Remus…is a…werewolf," Sirius said softly. 

"Oh my god," Peter breathed, looking terrified.

***********************

  
                "You're sure, you're absolutely sure it was the full moon last night," Sirius demanded of Lily for hundredth time as they hurried towards the Astronomy Tower. 

"Abso-bloody-lutely, Sirius, for the millionth time, but that's what we're going to check on, right?"

"So shut up, for god's sake." James finished. 

They came to the stairs at the bottom of the tower and James pulled out the Invisibility Cloak. The Astronomy Tower was out of bounds for everything except classes and getting caught would not help them now. The Cloak was huge, but even so it was a tight fit with all four of them under it, and they stumbled and swore their way up the stairs. When they got there, they pulled the Cloak off and looked around at the hundreds of moon, star and planet charts. 

"Oh shit," Lily said, "Why is it Remus who's good at Astronomy?"

"You have me," James said pointedly.

"Great," she replied sarcastically. 

"Siri, why aren't you good at Astronomy?" Peter asked curiously, while James went to work on the moon charts. "I thought Orion and Esme were the best in the school?"

Sirius looked furious and slightly pained at this. "Oh yes," he said, somewhat menacingly. "All Black's are supposed to be good at it. Why the hell do you think we got named after stars? But I'm the odd one out, the crappy one, and my father hates me for it," he finished bitterly, cuffing his eyes with his sleeve. 

                The others stared dumbfounded, totally unsure of what to say. It was Lily who finally broke the silence, saying, "God, Sirius, why didn't you tell us?"

"Well who wants to admit their parents hate them? My father hates me cos I'm the first in centuries not to have the talent, and Mum hates me cos of a trick I played on Esme when we were kids!"

"What did you do?" James asked with interest. 

"Turned her into a snake!" Sirius said proudly. They all laughed and the uncomfortable mood was forgotten, until James yelled "Bingo! I have it!" with glee. But then his face fell, and he held out the piece of parchment with a shaking hand. "It _was_ the full moon, and so was last time."

********************

                Suddenly faced with the concrete reality of their best friend being a werewolf, the four were uncharacteristically quiet, and in the library to boot. They had, as unobtrusively as possible, taken all the books they could find on werewolves, with some on other animals thrown in as a precaution. They were now systematically reading through them all, exchanging only whispered comments such as "It's only one day per moon," or "They're only a danger to humans," always followed by a "poor Re." Except for Peter, that is, because he looked positively terrified that they had had a werewolf in their midst for so long. 

                Eventually James put his book down. "Well, what are we going to do?" he asked seriously. 

"Tell him," Lily and Sirius said at once. 

"I think you're right," James agreed. 

"It's best for all of us that way; at least then it'll all be out in the open," Lily said. 

"I just don't see why he had to lie to us," Sirius muttered.

 Lily leaned over and whispered in his ear, "In case we reacted like Peter has," indicating Peter, who was pale and trembling.

"He should be back by now," James said heavily. "Shall we get it over with?" His friends nodded their heads and they left the library, looking as sombre as anyone had ever seen them. 

                When they reached the common room, they asked if any one had seen Remus. "Yeah, he's up in your dorm, sleeping," a fifth year told them. 

"Thanks," Lily said. "Lets go," she said to the others, and James and Sirius put on determined faces. 

"Nuh-uh," Peter said suddenly. "There is no way you are getting me to go up there."

"For chrissakes, Peter, this is not the right time," Lily muttered. 

"Why not?" asked James.

"I'm scared."

"Of what?" Lily said scornfully.

"Oh just leave the little shit, and lets go," Sirius said furiously, glaring at Peter. With their own glares, the others followed him up the stairs and pulled open the door. 

                Remus was lying in his bed. He looked up at them as they entered, and they looked at him, unsure how to start, before Sirius blurted out: 

"Remus Lupin, are you a werewolf?"

That's the end of the most demanding chapter I have ever written. I fund it quite emotional to write, and I would like to know if I've handled the subject well or not, cos I can see more angst coming in the next chapter. So you all know what I'm going ask you, don't you? Please, Review! Be a Good person!


	14. The Shrieking Shack

Chapter 14: The Shrieking Shack

Disclaimer: everything recognizable in this story, including James, Lily, Sirius, Remus, Peter and frank, as well as other, belongs to the great J.K. Rowling, and I intend to make no money etc. 

Authors Note:  this chapter has taken so long to come out that I'll be surprised if there's anyone left reading it. For those loyal fans that are, I apologise deeply, and beg a chance to explain. I have not only had important exams, but have moved house, and temporarily lost possession of my notebooks since the last chapter was posted. Therefore, I hope you'll all forgive me! Thanks!

                Remus froze looked at them with terrified eyes. He looked like an animal caught in the headlights of an approaching car. "You know," he finally stated calmly. The silence continued after that; it drew out for what felt like ages while terrified thoughts flitted quickly through Remus' head; his worst imaginings come true. 'They'll hate me,' he thought. 'They're just here to tell me I'm a monster and that they're going to tell the whole school, and then they'll leave me forever.' This last thought was too much for the boy who had only counted four people as friends in his entire life, and Remus turned and buried his head in his pillows, shoulders shaking with silent sobs. 

                "Remus, why are you crying?" James cried out, aghast. Remus didn't answer, but his crying intensified, and it was this that finally prompted three friends to take action. They rushed to his side and pulled him back into a sitting position. Seeing that Remus was still crying, Sirius pulled him into a giant bear hug that nearly crushed the smaller Remus. 

"You're still here?" Remus asked. "You're not frightened of me?" He was bemused as to why his friends were not at this very moment declaring him as an evil abomination. 

"Why would we be frightened of you?" Sirius asked gently. "You're still the same Remus."

"Though Peter, being the little shit that he is, now thinks you're going to eat him or something," Lily said disgustedly. This was obviously the wrong thing to say, because it brought a fresh bought of sobbing from Remus, so James added hastily, "But he's Peter. The boy who's scared of house-elves." Remus grinned slightly at the memory of Peter's first encounter with a house-elf, at age 8, when he had squeaked and hid in a cupboard. 

"The only thing we wanted to know is why you didn't tell us," Sirius said. "Why did you think we'd hate you?"

"That's the way most people react," Remus said, sad knowledge in his voice. He thought of the verbal abuse he had received from members of his own family when they had found out, and shuddered involuntarily. Sirius drew him closer, and began to wipe the tears from Remus' face with his robes. 

"We know _you_, Remus, we'd love you whatever you were," James said earnestly. "Except perhaps a Slytherin," he added doubtfully. 

Again Remus smiled. "Dumbledore told me I shouldn't tell anyone. And it was so touch and go to see if I could come here…I just didn't want to disappoint him. And I was scared."

"Listen to me now," Lily said sternly. "You've no reason _ever_ to be scared of us. And we know we've none to be scared of you. But we just want to know if there's anything we can do to help." By the end of her little speech, Lily's voice was almost breaking from the emotion involved. 

"How did you find out?" Remus asked dully. 

"I saw you this morning, walking back. Then Sirius worked it out from there."

'It would be Sirius,' Remus thought. Quick-witted Sirius who he had always loved the most. 

"There's no way we can help you, is there?" James asked, already knowing the answer. 

"No. I'm a danger to all humans. Even you. I – I can't control myself. I wouldn't know it was you."  

Sirius was damned if he was going to take that for an answer. "We'll find some way of helping you, Remie," he said sincerely. 

"You will not," Remus argued back. "I'll not have you getting hurt just because I'm a monster."

"You're not a monster!" his friends yelled together, glaring at him. 

"That's not what most people would say, you know. Please, please, don't tell anyone," Remus begged, beginning to cry again. 

"Of course we won't." 

"Now stop crying, Remie," Lily said imperiously. "Cos we've still got your birthday feast stored away in here, begging to be eaten."

                At the mention of food, Sirius virtually dropped Remus who he had still been holding, and flew across the room to their loose floorboard where the food was hidden. This floorboard has not been loose when they began at Hogwarts, but an afternoon of steady fiddling from James and Remus had soon loosened it up.  Sirius pulled out all the food, then sat down and began munching where he was. "SIRIUS!"  James yelled. "Share!"

"It's Remie's food, you great git," Lily added. 

Sirius pouted. "Do I have to?"

"YES!" they yelled. 

While he was bringing the food over, Remus looked at James. "What about Peter? Doesn't he get to share?" he asked. 

"I don't think he deserves it," James replied. 

"Little shit," Sirius swore, dropping the iced bun he had been carrying. "When I get my hands on him I'm going to fucking-,"

"Sirius," said James in a warning tone of voice. "He's significantly smaller than you." This didn't seem to matter to Sirius, who continued to glower at the absent Peter. "Eat," Lily commanded him, and Sirius soon visibly calmed down. 

                They continued to eat, laugh and joke until all the food was gone, and it was beginning to look as if Remus had never been crying at all. Suddenly James got up, and went to the hole in the floor, bringing out a giant birthday cake with a flourish. "We know it's a day late, but…" he shrugged. 

"Doesn't matter," Remus said, blushing, as they began to sing 'happy birthday' to him. 

                The cake was delicious, filled with layers of jam, cream, and chocolate cream, and seeing James and Sirius fighting over the last slice, which got crushed beneath them, was even better. Remus was left with a feeling of indescribable happiness and love for his amazing, if rather immature, friends. 

That was, as long as he didn't think about Peter. 

******************

                Even after the impromptu birthday party, Sirius was still not happy. He was more furious with Peter than he had ever been in his life, and he kept thinking the same things over and over. How could Peter think Remus was a danger to them? He had known Remus since he was five! And how could he possibly act the way he had, especially at a time when Remus particularly needed their full support? These same thoughts flew around his head all through the evening, and all night as well, preventing him from sleeping. 

                For his part, Peter was wise enough to recognise how angry his friends were with him, and he studiously avoided them all night.  However, as they remained in the dormitory, that wasn't hard. It just meant that he had to be sure they were asleep when he crept in just before midnight. 

                Sirius, of course, was wide-awake when he heard Peter creep in. He listened to Peter making more noise than ever as he tried to be quiet, and it was only Lily sleeping beside him that prevented him from getting up to yell at Peter then. 

                Neither boy slept very well, so when Sirius heard Peter get up long before he would normally have surfaced, he carefully got out of bed and followed him to the showers. 

                "Peter," Sirius called clearly, "Come here for a moment." Peter froze for a moment, now aware that he was trapped, because the only route out of the showers was past his friend, before slowly turning around to look at Sirius.  Sirius looked so very angry that Peter couldn't look him in the eye, so instead he gazed at Sirius' feet, which enraged Sirius even more. 

"What the hell do you think you doing yesterday, Peter? How could you treat Re like that?"

"I was scared, Sirius, he's a monster!" Peter said, trembling. "He could kill us!"

"I don't believe you!" Sirius yelled. "You've known Remus for years and you still think that?" 

"But he's a…a…you know, Sirius," Peter whispered, too afraid to utter the name. Sirius completely saw red. He strode over to Peter and grasped his shoulders. "Take it back!" he growled, "Take it all back. Remus would never hurt anything!" Peter gasped and began to cry.  "But he's a dark creature," he managed to choke out. 

                Suddenly, Sirius' fist hit his face with enough force to knock Peter backwards. Through dazed eyes, Peter looked up at Sirius, who stood above him shaking with rage. "If I ever, _ever_, hear you say any of those things again, I'll… I don't know what I'll d, but you wont live to remember it," Sirius ground out, before turning and leaving the showers. Peter lay on the tiles, not sure anymore who he was most frightened of, Sirius or Remus. 

******************

                A month passed quickly. Both James and Lily ignored all signs of the incident between Sirius and Peter, including Peter's huge black eye, and never said a word about Peter's behaviour towards Remus. They recognized that Sirius had dealt with it, even if it was perhaps not in the best of ways.  Peter never said another word about Remus' affliction, and his friends took this to mean that he was being more tolerant of it. 

                As the full moon in April approached, Sirius, James and Lily began to make plans. They sat whispering together in the common room at night, alone, and both Remus and Peter noticed they were being left out, meaning that they both felt terrible. Remus was sure his friends were rejecting him because of his lycanthropy, while Peter simply thought that they didn't like him any more. 

                The truth was that the three were planning a surprise for Remus at the next full moon, and they didn't trust Peter not to chicken out if he was given time to think about it. However, the plan required quite a bit of research, and this was causing friction. 

"Some one has to go and find out what time the moon sets tomorrow," Lily said bossily. It was two nights before the full moon, and they had discovered that the rising of the sun did not mean the setting of the moon, so they would have to find out exactly when it set the day after next. 

"Well its no use sending me, I'm crap at Astrology," Sirius declared. 

"We're all crap at Astrology," James moaned. 

"Some one has to go," Lily said firmly. 

"Why not you?" James contested. 

"Because I've done nearly all the work for this."

"No you haven't, you've barely sat down for two minutes before making up some excuse."

"Yes I have."

"No you haven't."

"Yes I have."

"No you haven't."

"No, I haven't," Lily suddenly agreed, changing tack. 

"Yes you have – dammit Lily, that's so immature!" James yelled. 

"It worked, though. I suggest you and Sirius go under the Cloak."

"Ok," Sirius agreed, bouncing happily. He was always up for nighttime adventures, so long as he didn't have to do any actual work. 

"Ok," James said, growling under his breath. "Just 'cos you're too chicken."

"Whatever." 

*****************

                The trip was successfully made, so the next night the three huddled under the Invisibility Cloak to watch where Madam Pomfrey, the younger but much nicer of the schools two nurses, took Remus. They gawped in amazement as the fearsome Whomping Willow stopped whomping, but were quite satisfied that they now knew how to reach their friend. They trudged back up to Gryffindor Tower, and straight into bed, to the astonishment of their housemates. 

                Somehow, Lily ended up sleeping in James' bed, so of course they were still bickering when Frank went to bed at 11.30. After ten minutes of listening to angry voices, pained yelps and the thud of fists hitting skin, Frank had had enough.  "Shut up, lovebirds," he called grumpily across the room. 

                Sirius snickered, proving that he too was still awake. James and Lily immediately went quiet, but the sounds of scrabbling on James' bedside table proved that at least one of them was looking for a wand. The two guilty boys stiffened in fear, worried about what curses might be thrown their way, but the wand remained hidden and eventually the search was given up. 

                The dormitory went quiet and soon the only sound was soft snores and loud happy sighs as Sirius dreamed of food. Unconsciously, James and Lily curled around each other, something they would never do during daylight hours. Time passed, until it was four a.m. and Lily's tiny clockwork alarm went off next to her head. 

                Lily blinked sleepily, confused by the feelings of warmth and contentment that surrounded her. She looked to the side and saw the peacefully sleeping head of James Potter right next to her own. "AGHHHHHHHHH!" she screamed loudly.

                This was enough to make Sirius jump awake immediately, and he sat up in bed, cracking his head on the post at the end of the bed. It seemed that he too had moved in the night. But would Lily ever get used to waking up next to James, he wondered. He didn't think he wanted her too; it would remove a now-comforting ritual. "Morning, Lils," Sirius called, looking at Lily, who by now had got out of bed and was glaring speculatively at James. Seeing that, and remembering Lily's patented way of waking James up, Sirius said, "I'll wake Jamie, you get dressed." Lily humphed and left the room, while Sirius wakened Peter with a shake and a "Come on, we're going adventuring."

                As Peter stumbled out of bed, Sirius turned to his last sleeping friend, and miraculously soon had James awake. The three dressed quickly, then darted off to the toilets. By 4.10 they were ready to go. 

                It was a tight fit with the four of them under the Cloak, especially with someone as prone to tripping as Peter, but eventually they made it to the Whomping Willow. Peter had no idea where they were going, and his friends had no intention of telling him, but the others all felt a surge of excitement and happiness, because they were doing this for Remus. They had thought of a way they could help him. 

                A very convenient long stick lay near the tree, and James lifted it, poking it around until he found the right spot, a large knot of wood on the trunk. He slipped down the resulting hole first, followed by Peter, then Lily and Sirius, bare seconds before the branches started swinging again. "Shit, that was close!" Sirius said, adrenalin making his voice loud. 

"Shush," Lily and James warned, glaring at him. Silence was essential if they wanted to surprise Remus. They followed a long tunnel, occasionally having to dip their heads, and soon pushed their way out of a small trap door.  

                To their utter shock they emerged into a dusty room, complete with torn and destroyed furniture. Lily and James shared a surprised look; this wasn't what they had expected. Sirius, the last, joined them in the room, and they looked around for any sign of Remus. Seeing none, they made their way towards the stairs. 

                The spots of blood started on the bottom step, and continued up the entire flight, getting bigger as they proceeded. Lily and James exchanged another glance; more worried this time, speaking without words. From behind, Sirius urged them on. 

                Peter suddenly seemed to realise what was going and, and he stopped dead, making Sirius bang into him. "No way-," he began loudly, before Sirius' hand clapped over his mouth, and Sirius began to push him up the stairs. The moon had set fifteen minutes before, and the others knew they were perfectly safe.     The stairs ended at a door, and once that was opened, Remus was immediately visible. He was lying by the foot of a large bed, semi-conscious and bleeding profusely.  With a synchronised cry, his friends rushed towards him, Sirius in the lead.      

                Without any verbal communication, Sirius and James bent and gently lifted Remus to the bed, while Lily wrung her hands in agitation. Even Peter was concerned enough to leave the safety of the doorway. 

                The movement seemed to jar Remus to full wakefulness. He blinked confusedly for a minute or two, then grew angry. "What are you doing here?" he rasped out, his voice low and pained. 

"Shush," Lily soothed. 

"We came to see you, obviously," James said, trying to lighten the situation.

 "But you…" Remus paused to gain energy, "could have been hurt."

"We checked the moon times. We're not complete idiots, you know," Sirius said affectionately.  With that, all Remus' protests faded along with his energy and he closed his eyes again. 

"Re, you're bleeding, have you got anything we can clean it with?" James asked eventually. Remus shook his head. "There's nothing you can do," he said painfully. "But Madam Pomfrey will be here soon."

                They lapsed into silence again, and James, Lily and Sirius felt deflated. Their wonderful plan to help Remus had come to nothing. They had been naïve enough to think he would be relived to see them, but in reality Remus was probably too injured to even realise they were there. They were cursing themselves for being complete idiots when Remus whispered: 

"Thanks for coming, guys, I'm really grateful. Will you come next time too?"

*****************

                It was a mad rush to get all four able Gryffindors under the cloak before Madam Pomfrey reached the top of the stairs, but they managed it – just. She cleaned Remus' wounds, and helped him back to the hospital wing. 

                When Remus returned to the Common room that evening, his friends asked to see how bad the damage he had done to himself was. They were incredibly shocked when he explained that even the deepest of cuts healed within hours, because only silver could harm werewolves.

That's the end of this chapter, folks! As always, reviews are greeted with pure joy and lots of whooping! Hint hint…


	15. Quidditch, Exams and Goodbyes

Chapter 15: Quidditch, Exams and Goodbyes

Authors Note:  this is the last part of year two, and the first part of the next story will be out relatively soon.

Disclaimer: none of the recognisable characters in this story belong to me, and I plan to make no money from this. They belong to J.K. Rowling, and Warner Bros. 

                The last Quidditch match of the year was in the first week of June, on Sirius' birthday. Gryffindor were playing Hufflepuff, and having beaten Slytherin 200-50 in early May, they had only to win this to win the cup. 

                James was slightly more wary of this match than he had been of previous matches. Despite having scored two of Gryffindors five goals, the Slytherin match had been a bit of a wake up call to the nastier side of Quidditch. He had been badly bruised in a game that had seen four penalties awarded to Gryffindor, and had been in pain for a week afterwards. However, as his friends and team mates constantly reminded him (and themselves), Hufflepuff were not Slytherin, were known for their fair play, and were likely, as Lydia put it, to be a 'piss-easy pushover'. 

                For this match, the second years managed to wake up on time, and had a hearty breakfast early that morning. 

"Sirius Black, are you sure you have enough there?" Lydia joked at the Gryffindor table. Sirius had piled his plate with not only the usual sausages, eggs, bacon and beans, but also mushrooms, tomatoes, hash browns, toast _and_ bread and butter, and he had already devoured a large bowl of porridge. "Your plate looks like a mountain!" she added. 

"I'm a growing boy; what can I say?" Sirius said impishly. 

"Doesn't mean you have to eat like a troll," Orion rebuked. "I don't know what Mum's going to say when I get you home. How many owls home have you had now?" 

"Oh, we lost count ages ago," James said casually. 

Orion shook his head. "I can remember when Mum thought I was bad! You really should behave better, you're-,"

Mercifully, Orion was interrupted by the arrival of the mail. "Hey Siri, look how many owls you've got?" Lily exclaimed. About six owls were clustered around Sirius, pecking at each other in an attempt to get to him first. What resulted was a brawl between the owls, and the noise and laughter soon had Professor McGonagall striding across the room towards them. 

"Why is it that trouble always finds you, Black?" she asked ruefully, looking at the brawling birds. 

"Aww, that's not fair, Professor, it's my birthday, you cant be mean!" Sirius whined, looking up at her with wide, innocent eyes.  

"Happy birthday, then, Sirius. But I would suggest that you sort out your owls. Some have parcels," McGonagall replied with a smile. 

                As Lily and Remus helped Sirius to unload his owls, McGonagall turned to James, Lydia and Orion, and said, "Make sure you win today. Score lots of goals, you two, and keep up your record, please, Orion." As the students grinned, she leaned a bit closer. "I know I shouldn't be saying this, but Hufflepuff aren't the best of teams. You should win easily." Grins all along the table widened. 

"WOW!" This loud exclamation was from Sirius, who had just unwrapped an Appleby Arrows hat. "It's from Steve!" He unwrapped the second parcel Steve, his younger brother, had sent, and pulled out a huge piece of shimmering red cloth. As Lily helped him unwind it, a note fell out, and James read it aloud. "' For your Quidditch match today. Good luck, from Steve.'"

                Spread out, the material was revealed to be huge Gryffindor banner, which sported a golden lion that actually roared. All the Gryffindors, including McGonagall, exclaimed in delight at the work that had obviously been put into it, and Orion remarked with affection, "I'd say Stevie has way to much time on his hands."

                McGonagall stayed to see Sirius open the rest of his parcels, and across the hall, Severus Snape paled visibly. Not all of Sirius' presents were as satisfactory as those from his brother, however; the present from his parents was a star chart, an obvious reproach to his lack of talent in this area, but then, he was more than pleased with the Galleon he received from his Gran. He opened the last envelope and gave a sudden yell; a bolt of bright light had jumped out and hit him square in the chest. What was happening to his body was unclear due to his robes, but within seconds his body had dropped a good foot and a half. 

                "Sirius, what's wrong?" Professor McGonagall demanded sharply. Sirius grimaced and shook his head, then opened his mouth. As the Gryffindors peer into it, they could immediately see that his tongue had shrunk. 

"What happened?" James yelled, looking scared. McGonagall pulled off Sirius' robes, revealing that his legs and arms had also shrunk until they were only a few centimetres long. 

"Holy crap!" Lily exclaimed. McGonagall took a long look at Sirius and tried several antidotal spells before hitting on the right one. 

                With a pained shout, and the sounds of bones grinding together, Sirius' extremities grew back to their correct sizes. He glared around at everyone in sight, as if suspecting them of the prank, but all the faces visible were horrified. Sirius sighed and sat down, still in pain. 

                McGonagall knew she would have to take quick and decisive action if she was to have any hope of Sirius' friends not taking their revenge on the culprit. This was no harmless prank that had been pulled, but rather a mean, spiteful trick, designed to hurt Sirius. Although she was a firm believer in the rule 'innocent until proven guilty', there really were only two suspects in this case: Malfoy, or Snape. "I think you should take your new banner down to the Quidditch pitch now," she said kindly to Sirius. "I'll look into who was responsible for this."

"We know who was responsible for this," James burst out, high spots of colour in his cheeks. "Snape!" 

"Innocent until proven guilty, James," McGonagall said calmly, masking her own emotions. "Now off you go." She shooed them all, Lydia Orion included, out of the great hall and heaved a great sigh of relief when she finally saw them turn towards the stadium. 

                As she turned back to go into the hall, she bumped into Dumbledore. "What was all that about, Minerva?" he asked solemnly. 

"Someone played a particularly spiteful trick on Black. I have to find a way of proving the culprit now, or I fear there will be bloodshed," McGonagall replied with a soft laugh. 

*******************

                Down at the Quidditch pitch, Lily, Sirius, Remus and Peter had the best seats, in the very front row of the middle stand. They had hung their banner over the front of the stand, and were now waiting impatiently for the match to start.

                Just then, the two teams flew out, to enormous applause. The crowd were equally divided, with the Ravenclaws supporting Gryffindor so that the Championship did not go to Slytherin, and the Slytherins following Hufflepuffs because a Hufflepuff victory of 300 points or more would guarantee the Cup went to Slytherin.          

                The match started in frenzied excitement because of a penalty awarded to Gryffindor due to a foul on James by the Hufflepuff Chaser Amos Diggory. Lydia converted it, and Gryffindor were 10-0 up within two minutes. 

                After that, the game settled into an easy pattern, with Gryffindor scoring every five to ten minutes, so that after an hour the score was 80-0. James seasons goal tally had risen from 5 to 7, although Lydia had already scored 5 goals in this match alone. There had been no sign of the Snitch at all, and Lyn looked rather bored. 

                For the first time in the match, a Hufflepuff Chaser had the Quaffle and was making for the Gryffindor goal posts. Orion came out to block the shot, but a Beater crashed into his broom, sending him sprawling to the ground far below, and the Chaser scored. 

                "Foul! No goal!" Madam hooch shouted angrily. The Hufflepuff crowd booed this decision, but the sight of their injured Keeper, who was now sitting, but seemed unable to stand riveted the Gryffindors. Mrs. Plastare, the school's senior nurse, was administering him with a potion, and suddenly Orion stood up on very shaky legs. 

                "YAY! GO OR ION! WELL DONE! YOU ROCK!" yelled the Gryffindors, as Orion remounted his broom. He waved to the Gryffindors, and blew a sarcastic kiss towards the Hufflepuff Beater, prompting gales of laughter. 

                Lydia flew forward to take the penalty, and scored. Hufflepuff restarted the game, but within seconds Sean had stolen the Quaffle and passed to James, who shot up the pitch like a rocket. He rolled on his broom as Bludger flew through where his head should have been, but recovered in time to score. Within minutes, both Sean and Lydia had added another, and Gryffindor were still in possession. 

Lydia then signalled it was time to put into practice one of their best strategies.  She and Sean infuriated the Hufflepuffs by making short, sharp passes in the middle of the pitch, never moving forward, while James snuck up field. His fellow Chasers waited until all three opposition Chasers were occupied in marking them, then sent a long, looping throw his way. He was alone and unmarked, and found it pathetically easy to beat the Keeper. The crowd went wild at this spectacular bit of Quidditch, and it was 130-0. 

                After another hour of exhaustive Gryffindor scoring, it was 220-0, and James had scored 8 goals, as many as Lydia. He was in the process of scoring again when every other player on the pitch stopped to watch the two Seekers dive. However, James did not notice, and scored his goal. 

"Hufflepuff have the Snitch! But Gryffindor WINS! 220-150!" yelled the commentator, and James stopped so suddenly he that nearly tumbled off his broom. They had won? "YES!" he yelled, screaming with joy, as he dropped the Quaffle and headed towards his teammates. 

                He was fine with being enveloped in the group hug, but he flushed bright red when Lydia gave him the same kiss on the mouth she had given everyone else. This prompted the team to laugh hysterically, and as they were borne towards Dumbledore on the shoulders of a crowd of crying Gryffindors, James laughed too, suffused with happiness.

*****************

It seemed like ages before James could get away from the crowds to find his friends. He found Lily, Remus and Peter waiting in the changing rooms. "Hey!" he said.  "You're not supposed to be in here!" but it only made him laugh, because he was too happy to be angry about anything. "Where's Sirius?"

"He's pissed because he saw Lydia kiss you," Remus explained. "He's sulking. Again."

"That's so stupid!" James spluttered. "We've just won the Quidditch Cup!"

"Yeah, we explained all that to him, but you know what he's like. Stupid," Lily said dismissively. "Hurry up and shower, we want to go celebrate!"

"Would you get out of here, Lily, I don't want you to see me naked," James laughed.  

"I don't particularly want to see you naked, so don't worry, I wont look. Just hurry up." They grinned at each other, happy enough not to argue for once. 

*******************

                Upon reaching the Gryffindor Common Room, James was pulled through the portrait hole, and congratulated anew on the other side. Eventually he spotted Sirius sulking on the other side of the room, and made his way over. "Hey, Siri, don't be angry with me," James said, grinning. "It was just excitement, and I was more embarrassed than anything." To his astonishment and relief, Sirius grinned back, and threw his arms around James. 

"How could I ever be angry at you?" Sirius laughed, ruffling James' hair. "Congratulations!"

                The portrait hole burst open again, and the rest of the team poured in. "Three cheers for Gryffindor!" someone yelled. "Hip, hip HOORAY!" the room roared. The team swept over to James, and Lydia gave James another bone crushing hug, which James promptly wriggled out of. "I'll have more bruises from you then the Quidditch at this rate!" James joked.

"And what about the birthday boy?" Lydia cooed, turning to Sirius. "I haven't given you a kiss yet!" She swept down on Sirius and kissed him loudly on the cheek. James fell over laughing, while Sirius blushed and tried to look upset. However, as soon as Lydia left, he gave James a wide, joyous smile, and James had a feeling this would be a birthday Sirius would remember forever. 

*****************

                AT half past two the next morning, after Professor Dunworthy had arrived to 'spoil' the party (in the opinion of several Gryffindors), everybody finally went up to bed. At about nine o'clock, someone had produced some alcohol, and now the whole house was slightly tipsy, or in the case of the team, completely pissed. 

                James flopped onto his bed upon entrance to the room, and was asleep upon hitting the mattress. He lay with his arms out and feet on the floor until Remus took pity and lifted him onto the bed. 

                Sirius and Lily, having supported each other up the stairs, fell onto Sirius' bed, giggling and still entwined. "Don't you want your present?" Lily whispered loudly, then giggled some more. 

"Of course, what is it, what is it?" Sirius demanded. Lily fell off the bed and scrambled over to James', reaching under it and coming up with a large, messily wrapped parcel, which she tossed to Sirius. Being slightly inebriated, he fumbled the catch, but he eventually got the present back and ripped it open. He stared wide-eyed with shock. 

                The teddy. His teddy, that he had been waiting for since Peter's birthday in November, but had never quite had the guts to search through Lily's things for. He was pure white, surely a play on Sirius' name and reputation, and just hugging him made Sirius so happy. "He's called Milky," Lily said, suddenly shy. "And he has an extra present for you." It was only then that Sirius realised Milky was holding a bar of Honeydukes chocolate. "I got Luke to get it for me," Lily confided. 

"Oh Lily, thank you so much!" Sirius exclaimed, holding his arms open. Lily hugged him, and they fell back onto the bed like that. "Happy birthday, Siri," Lily said, kissing him on the forehead. Within moments, both were fast asleep.

******************

                Gryffindor House did not wake up for breakfast that morning. The majority of them did not make it to lunch, either, and stumbled down into the Common Room in the middle of the afternoon, curing their hangovers but blessing Sundays. 

                Lily, Remus, Sirius and Peter were the exception to that rule. Although not even Remus had managed breakfast, they were up and on their way to Hogsmeade by 10 o'clock, having left a very hung over James in bed. They were determined to continue celebrating both Sirius' birthday and the Quidditch result. 

                It was now 3 o'clock, and they had arrived back in their dormitory to find James. They discovered him that he was awake, but has his head buried under the pillows, and when they noisily burst in, he put two fingers up behind him. 

                "Jamie, Jamie, Jamie!" Sirius yelled excitedly. "Look what I've got!" He darted over to his bed and snatched up his bear, and then took a flying leap onto James' bed. 

"Fuck OFF, Sirius!" James yelled furiously. 

"Look, Jamie!" Sirius paid no attention to James griping, and shoved Milky right under the pillows. 

"Get that bloody bear out of my face!"

Sirius snatched his beloved bear to his chest, and glared at James. "Don't you be mean to my Milky," he said, in a very low, dangerous voice. When James merely put his two fingers back up, Sirius lost his temper completely, and pushed James off the bed and onto the floor. He jumped down on top of his friend, and they began to fight. 

James scrambled backwards, alarmed by the ferocity of Sirius' attack. "It's just a teddy, Siri," he said soothingly. 

 "He's not a _it_, he's a _he_!" Sirius cooed. "Isn't he, Lily?"

"Err…yes," Lily answered, choking back laughter. "Here, Jamie, maybe yours'll make you feel better," she added, throwing James his own bear, Mars. James hugged the bear to his chest and immediately felt better. "I know I don't usually say this, but thank you so much for the bears, Lil," James smiled happily. 

"See, you're just as bad as he is," Lily teased.

"At least I don't fly off the handle when someone insults mine," James responded. "Imagine if the Slytherins could see: big, strong Sirius Black defending the honour of his teddy bear!"

"OY!" Sirius yelled. 

*****************

                The exams started the next week, and only Peter had even attempted to revise. The others were simply relying on luck and natural talent to get them through. They found most of the exams rather easy, due to the 'extra-curricular' research they had often done for tricks, and even seemed to do well in exams which were usually hard, such as Potions, which was made ten times harder by having Headley constantly watching over them, waiting for them to slip up. Herbology was a breeze, and much to the delight of his class, Sirius fell so fast asleep in History of Magic that Professor Binns was unable to wake him up. 

                On the day that the results came out, the five slept in late. The results had been posted on a large board in the Great Hall, and naturally, a large crowd had gathered to see the results. Frank Longbottom burst into the second year dormitory to find all his roommates still asleep. He had just been to see the results, and was pleased with his own, but he was absolutely desperate for the five to see theirs.     

"Wake up! Wake up!" he yelled, tugging at Remus, who was normally the easiest to wake. Remus opened an eye, and asked "What?" 

"Results!" said Frank excitedly. Remus apparently wasn't interested, because he turned back over again. It was the same when he tried with the other four, and, furiously angry by now, Frank decided to simply pour water over them. 

                He collected some water, and poured it first over Remus and Lily, the Peter, James and lastly Sirius. Needless to say, the five were not amused, and Frank had to take sanctuary in the toilets until they had calmed down enough to listen to his message. "Please, listen to me!" he entreated. "There's something I really need to show you! Get dressed and come on, please!"

                So, still angry, but intrigued, the five got dressed in whatever came to hand (Lily ended up in Sirius' jeans and James' t-shirt, while James' seemed unaware he was wearing Lily's tie-die top), and followed the blond and extremely bubbly Frank to the Great Hall. 

                Upon arriving, Frank indicated the results board, so they all unceremoniously shoved aside students from other houses and years who were clustered around it. They took one look at the board, and burst into hysterical, disbelieving laughter. Everyone stared in shock, thinking that the second years had finally gone completely mad, until Frank said loudly, "They're top of everything and they didn't do a bit of revision. It's a bit of a shock." The worried, slightly shocked faces around them turned to ones of disbelief, and some people made sour faces, saying to their friends that there was no need for the damn Gryffindors to gloat. (These, of course, were the Slytherins). 

                The results were correct, however. Sirius and James had come first and second for both Potions and Transfiguration, with Snape only managing third in Potions. Lily and Remus had also managed a one-two in Charms and DADA, and none of them were less than fifth for anything, except for History of Magic and Astronomy. Even Peter had managed third in History of Magic. And in the cumulated year group results, they occupied the top four spots with only three points between them. 

                Suddenly, Snape pushed through the crowd, followed by Malfoy. "We beat you, Sevvy," Sirius crowed. "You only came sixth!" Snape glared at his cousin, but did not respond. It was Malfoy who jeered at Sirius, saying, "Its nice to see that your legs and arms have grown back, Black. Did your dick shrink too, or was it that size already?" 

Sirius went pale, but Remus stopped any retort he might have made by asking, "But how would you have known of that trick, Malfoy? Is that an admission of guilt?" Malfoy could think of nothing to say to that, and both he and Snape stalked off. 

"Nice on, Re," James said appreciatively. 

"I do try," Remus grinned. 

*******************

                At the Leaving Feast that year, the Great Hall was brightly bedecked in the red and gold of Gryffindor House. This year there was no ambiguity, no uncertainty over who had won the Quidditch Cup, and Dumbledore did not have the joy of putting the entire student body through almost unbearable suspense, as he had the previous year. "We have come to the end of another year," he intoned solemnly from the teacher's table. "All of us have had our ups, our downs, out triumphs and our downfalls, and I sincerely hope that for each and every one of you, the successes have out weighed the bad times, and that you will all have a very enjoyable summer holiday. But first, I must award the House Cup.

                In fourth place, with 297 points, Hufflepuff.  In third, are Ravenclaw, with 350, second is Slytherin, with 407, but in first place, with an astounding 503 points, is Gryffindor!"

                The Gryffindor table let out a huge roar, banging their hands and feet on the table and floor, and congratulating each other. Dumbledore let them go for a minute, and then called in a quiet voice, "Congratulations to Gryffindor, but also to everyone else, for I know you have all tried your hardest. Now, I would suggest that everybody eat!"

                As the school tucked in, James happened to catch the antagonistic and bitter scowl Snape was casting at the Gryffindor table. He smiled in return, and blew a kiss. 

******************

                James, Sirius, Lily, Peter and Remus were all squashed into a carriage made for four the next morning, loudly discussing holiday plans. "The truth is," James said angrily, "I can say whatever I want to now, but I'm likely to arrive home tonight and find out I'm on the way to Antarctica tomorrow morning."

"And that would be such a shame," Lily interrupted. 

"And we'd all be so gutted if your parents lost you in the Sahara," James retorted. 

                Luckily for the others, the argument was cut short when they arrived at Hogsmeade Station, to see the Hogwarts Express sparkling as if it was brand new. They rushed out of the carriage to see if they could get the compartment at the very front of the train, so they would see the witch with the sweet trolley first. 

                Much later, as they were happily eating Chocolate Frogs, ("That's mine, Jamie, give it back!" "Finders keepers, losers weepers – OW!"), they began to reminisce about the year that had just passed. "Will you ever forget Snape's face when he realised we were all in the suits of armour?" Sirius crowed, remembering the truth potion Remus had given their enemy.  

"Or when he saw our exam results?" James added. 

"Or when we curled his nose hair," Lily said. 

"Or when we won the Cup!" Remus laughed. 

"That's right," said a new voice, "Have a good laugh. I got you worse though. Did it hurt having no legs or arms, cousin?" 

Snape stood with his black robes still on, looking rather bat like because the light was behind him, as were his friends Nott and Lestrange. 

"Finally had the courage to admit it, Sevvy?" Lily asked mockingly. 

"Now that there are no teachers to save you all," he replied in the same tone. 

"We'd hardly need saving from you," James laughed. 

"Oh, will Daddy get the Ministry to tell me off? No, I forgot, Daddy doesn't give a shit about Jamie." Snape had hit a nerve, and it showed on James' face. 

"Deflater," James snapped. "At least I have the guts to curse you to your face." To the astonished eyes of the others, Snape's body seemed to loose all its air, and he gasped wildly, before finally crumpling up. Suddenly bright bolts of lights were heading for the Gryffindors, and they were shooting back. 

                When the air cleared, it was glaringly obvious who had come off best. Lestrange's face was oozing pus and he had only sparse tufts of hair, while Nott had been knocked off his feet and had hands that were twice their normal size. With death glares, the two helped up their fallen comrade, who was breathing normally but looked shaken and weak, and left the compartment. 

"Wohoooooooo!" Sirius yelled, dancing James up and down the aisle. "And not one of us with a scratch!" he left James, and began to do a barn dance with Lily, as Remus hastily scrambled up onto the seat to avid them. 

"We won, we won!" Peter chanted. Remus just looked incredibly pleased with himself, for his had been the pus curse.                 

                Two hours later, they finally pulled into Kings Cross, still in high spirits. The first person they caught sight of on the platform was Steve, and he was helplessly swamped in hugs as they got off the train. 

"Your banner was wonderful!"

"We won the Cup!"

"Jamie scored 9 goals!"

"Wow!" Steve exclaimed, looking at James with admiration. They were interrupted by Remus' mother, who took James and Peter as well as her own son, and after a flurry of hugs and goodbyes, Sirius was left with Lily. "You have to come visit!" he cried impulsively. "Come on, I'll ask Mum now!"

He dragged Lily across to his mother, who he had just spotted. "Hi Mum! Yeah, I'm fine! Can Lily come stay in the summer? Please, please, please?"

Cerys Black looked flustered. "Yes, ok. Where's Orion? And Esme?" she said distractedly. 

"YES! We'll be really good, I promise!" Sirius exclaimed. 

"When?" Cerys asked, looking confused. But they were already gone to ask Lily's mother, who agreed readily; glad she would have a respite from Lily's arguments with Petunia. Both children left for home with sudden hope that this summer would not be as bad as the last. 

END OF YEAR 2!

That's it, folks, the end of year 2! I'm so very proud of myself! I'd like to say thanks! to anyone who has reviewed my stories in the past, or will be doing so right now. Hint hint. As always, reviews are greeted with shouts of joy, which is not always a good thing, as I'm usually in lessons when I decide to check! But I don't mind, review away anyway!


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